I leave homes like shedding
skins, and sometimes when I tell people
I lived in Germany, I think it's
wrong to say 'I,' because it
wasn't really me threading
together stems of daisies there.
I imagine a sprite haunting
paths between the golden wheat fields,
long brown ponytail flying behind
her-- not the pixie cut I wear now
like a crown, and I pause, wanting
to be her. It would be
simpler if more things stayed,
but who alive doesn't have infinite past
selves dying on the lips
of each and every moment like
forgotten conversation, strayed
from the topic at hand?
It's more that moving gives
them a home: the versions of me
I no longer am have their own
duty stations to haunt. And the
long-haired girl still lives
picking daisies in Germany.
Or did she quietly follow
me on the flight back to the states?
It seems so sometimes.
"I lived in Germany."
The words no longer feel hollow
when I realize that she,
as a ghost, is not bound by such rules
as being in only one place.
She can easily be in Germany
and still live inside of me too.