They say loneliness is a crime.
If so our house begged for transgression,
like a beacon in the streets.

How else to explain
the stranger who,
late at night,
walked into our house
out of the emptiness
of the highway
to stand
in our living room
before my mother
asleep in the Eames chair.

My mother
might have
flinched, steeled
— for what—
a blow, a blade,
hands
on her throat.
This is not
how I found them
when I came home—

My mother leaning
towards the stranger
like a friend,
breaking
the silence.
And I felt what I feel now—
my mother
was a stranger to me,
the flood of her words
always for someone else.

Both my mother
and the stranger
looked up and smiled at me,
and the loneliness
swept through me—
forgive me, I wanted to say.
All we ever wanted
was to let someone in.