Painted Grace

I was worried I would die without having slept on a wraparound porch,
and I wanted it to be white,
with black shutters,

with dinners that started in golden hour,
and ended well into the evening,

but on most nights,
I sat out there,
and waited for the Fata Morgana,

and took my toenails,
and drove them into the planks,

but I kept looking through the cracks there,
for the jars with the coins,

and I kept asking to go back to 1986,
without rhyme or reason,

and I was restless,
and having trouble shutting my eyes,
for fear of what it meant,
or where it would take me,

for fear of being selfish,

but it was a standstill carousel,
and there was some magic in that,
there was something to be said

for that---