straw into gold

in the back seat of my car i kept a sheep.
she would ask, "are you proud of me?"
i held her & said, "i am so proud of you."
when it rained i went to wendies 
without her & bought a cup of coffee
using whatever parking lot change
i could find. that summer was 
full of bugs. the carpet beetles 
on the floor of the car & the bugs 
that landed on the windshield 
& heckled us. "let me taste your blood."
i did not believe in god but
i used to pray. i think maybe praying came
before god. a need to turn elsewhere
& ask, "what have i done wrong?" & for
the space spoken to answer back
"the world is a sea of beautiful hungers."
sometimes, when the weather was right
i would walk with the sheep 
at the memorial park. it was a memorial
for dead soldiers. we read names 
& knew not what to do with them. 
we would talk about gold because i believed 
i would one day wake up & be able 
to shear her & spin her wool into gold.
in several fairy tales the captured princess
is told to turn straw into gold. 
i sometimes harvested grass as makeshift straw.
it never took. never gleamed. instead,
we lived from soda can to soda can.
on the day i got an apartment again
i woke up to find her gone. i wept.
i searched the streets for her.
i told her, "i will stay here if it means
i can keep you." she did not return. 
maybe she was god or maybe she was just 
another sheep with too much wool.
when i could not sleep in the new place
i would count the window. one 
through eight. eight whole windows. 
it was like they grew tomato-like & wild. 
what i don't tell people is i still try
in the late candle wax night
to turn fibers to gold. my hair. my eye lashes.
fingernails. i am trying to understand
how & why i survived. a sheep stands 
on the ceiling. i reach for her & then she is gone.