​I had a dream the scar on your face
Was a light in mine
I had a dream
Those yellow leaves 
Must have stained my mind

We were driving for miles just to drive
I remember the sun was alive

New shades of lavender
I’ve seen since then
But those yellows 
Haven’t been on my eyes

How did I become a stranger?
Guess I’d been looking
To leave things behind.
How did I become a stranger
When I saw you waiting tables
Yes, even mine

I remember your man was in jail
Back then, and I knew him besides.
We stopped and walked
Along through the woods,
So much gold hanging there in the sky

Funny how I remembered it as spring
A day as young as the planet brings.
A day before the oceans were swarming 
And I woke up here
In the city’s early morning 

How did I become a stranger?
Guess I’d been looking
To leave things behind.
How did I become a stranger
When I saw you waiting tables
Yes, even mine

Tao Tao says
Her mother was born Chinese
Says, "I'm glad I missed the sixties"
And I turn around
See the rain drip through the trees
Streetlight close behind
Oh Martha,
Oh Martha

I left your book
In Shanghai (too heavy to move)
I made love to your roommate (almost missed my plane)
It's not true that I'd forgotten you
Oh Martha,
Oh Martha

Falling down the street that night
I could bet you I was drunk
I could tell you how
How the rails shown wet
Under the wild new century wind
Oh Martha,
Oh Martha

Come sit down darlin' 
At my table 
Come sit down darlin'
It's been too long
Come sit down darlin' 
At my table 
Come sit down darlin'
There's room for you here

Well I lifted off
With ten bucks and a soul and a cough
Stowed twenty-two hours (a misfit mind)
On a train line
To see that cloud
Hang a shadow under the banked wing of a plane
It's not true that I'd forgotten you
Oh Martha,
Oh Martha,
​Oh Martha

​    I might have been raised by animals. Not in the sense that I grew up with dry maple leaves stuck to the side of my face, snarling at the blood under my fingernails. This is also not to say that I had bad parents. What I mean is that our household pets informed my moral compass.

       I'm not sure why I'm starting the whole story here. I'll do my best to explain the whole thing to you.

       One of our dogs was a rescuer of young kittens. He carried the squinting creatures one by one from the barn in the middle of our vast green fields, to a space heater that kept the early spring chill out of our garage. My father, paralyzed years earlier from a car accident that was no fault of his own, watched the whole thing happen while he ratcheted bolts into the Jeep CJ5 he was building as a hobby. He'd watch as the dog would shepherd the helpless creatures around the warm air blowing out of the rattling space heater, and lay on his side so that the warmth collected around them.
​
     We kept taking the kittens back to the barn, hoping their mother would return, but the dog already knew their mother wasn't coming back. Likely, she was killed in the surrounding woods.