Contributor: John Grey

- -
I'm staying at the old house,
my old room,
single bed,
same posters on the wall,
same tree through the window -

but outside.
a stranger's kids
are throwing up a basketball
into a hoop

and the woman next door
is now the old woman next door -
her once black hair
is goose-feather gray

and the house at the back
has three additions at least.
not counting the barrage
of rose bushes up against the fence -

and I look up
and I'm not even sure
if that's the same sun
that used to shine hereabouts -

and even my mother
wavers between the familiar
and the unrecognizable.

Five in the afternoon may be a different time.
A kitchen and a bathroom
might have traded places.
Eyes may breathe air
and lungs see their way around corners.
And I need to keep away from mirrors.
I may not know who I am.


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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes Review.