I have been distant
most of my life –

actual miles, unknowing,
new narratives.

Memory and discovery
fight it out

and find it out,
clarity that survives,

haze, a retelling that
glosses or grazes.

Miles first then:
family and home,

roots as anchor,
moves not chosen

soon enough are;
a lizard crawled across

to leave alternative trails.
The unknowing is a secret

and a partially seen
then waiting for its doors

to open wide.
Storytelling is prose

dressed as lyric
sung by the drunk

and the lorelei,
various lines recalled.

A life lived
by this kind of précis

gets to the gist
like the exercise it is,

and the divide
is linear

if drawing as the illusion
of having arrived.

Unable to attend,
these are reasons

why, and distances
retold still are.