Young

A thousand doors ago 
when I was a lonely kid 
in a big house with four 
garages and it was summer 
as long as I could remember, 
I lay on the lawn at night, 
clover wrinkling under me, 
the wise stars bedding over me, 
my mother's window a funnel 
of yellow heat running out, 
my father's window, half shut, 
an eye where sleepers pass, 
and the boards of the house 
were smooth and white as wax 
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks 
as the crickets ticked together 
and I, in my brand new body, 
which was not a woman's yet, 
told the stars my questions 
and thought God could really see 
the heat and the painted light, 
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.