In America, what’s real
juggles with what isn’t:
a woman I know props fabulous tulips
in her flowerbed, in snow.

Streets aren’t gold, but they could be.
Once a traveler mailed letters
in a trashcan for a week.
He thought they were going somewhere.
In America everything is going somewhere.

I answered a telephone
on a California Street.
Hello? It was possible.
A voice said: “There is no scientific proof
that God is a man.”
“Thank you.” I was standing there.
Was this meant for me?
It was not exactly the question
I had been asking, but it kept me busy awhile,
telling the story.

Some start out
with a big story
that shrinks.

Some stories accumulate power
like a sky gathering clouds,
quietly, quietly,
till the story rains around you.

Some get tired of the same story
and quit speaking;
a farmer leaning into 
his row of potatoes,

a mother walking the same child
to school.
What will we learn today?
There should be an answer,
and it should
change.