Midnight at St. Thomas’ Orphanage

(As published in Allegheny Review and Blue Earth Review, Spring 2007)

Children fall asleep,
But you shift, eyes
Open and thoughts form thumping:

A woman’s hand nudges the back
Of your head. You walk gracelessly,
Bumping her leavened-bread bosom.

You stroll into a field of ferns
And hay-shapes. The tall grass leans confidently
Like town flags. You hear the word cover.

The flies float full of gravy.
We lick and leisure, they say
You never need to swat them off.

A man picks you up higher
Than a church cross.
You smell the woody intensity of
His tacit nearness,
The sturdiness of his oxcart arms.

You ache for what you do not
Know, miss what you
Have not had.

Dinner is done and
This is this.