Pilgrimage

I ate 
one-tenth of one 
gram of psilocybin 
and went to hear Eileen Myles read 
in the city and everyone in the room bled 
together the way we’re supposed to 
but the lights went up and we were pushed out 
of the womb like water breaking 
and I was standing again in the labyrinth. 
Earlier I’d tried to navigate by sky 
after I’d forgotten how to swallow when I realized 
I was eating canned prayers
I’d thought – a nice meal before the poems
the restaurant was next to the Y
though, and a slow, quiet, parade of unhoused people zigzagged past.

You cannot walk in a straight line when you have no home. 

The bartender got nervous when the music stopped 
poured heavy, smiled wide
everyone inside was pearly white 
and well-fed on spring green asparagus
the hallway to the bathroom wreaked. 
I looked outside, not directly 
at the man with skinny ankles
or the woman with the swollen ones
never in the eye
too transactional 
and no one gets what they want
but just over their heads
the seagulls were fighting a band of crows 
and they won every time
chased those bright black birds back behind some sky line
then perched on the dumpster, laughing
later, they wheeled, blue, in the aqua light of Camden National 
like alabaster sentries of wealth, they never sleep. 
How do all of these parts live next to each other?  

It must be the walls

the bar, the book, the burning bush
hospitality, the homeless, the lilac girls with ivory arms
the apartment across the alley 
where someone lives a whole charmed life
their potted plant a prisoner slouched against the window 
I thought was a mirror when I walked by. 
Just six inches of soil around each tree in each cobbled courtyard
the earth is beneath the concrete
the earth is beneath the concrete
the earth beneath the concrete heaves 
the roots need
our logic cracks
I sat in my car and forgot to breath 
for five minutes before groping my way home and 
when I made it I received 
a two hundred dollar parking fine saying 
“overstayed” “please come back”.