I'm from libraries and books. 

There were always elm trees, 

Tall and leaking, diseased, eventually cut down.

One summer in the 90's, and the once shaded streets 

were suddenly too bright. 

I'm from a place with a father and mother,

A small place with a lot of incense and clutter. 

In the summer they'd take me in a Volkswagen bus 

driving across the country, to see our family. 

I'd sit in blankets in the back and read books 

to the buzz of the undampened steel, we'd stop 

in a town to get the sequel. The third and fourth. 

Once, around the lakes, 

the mosquitos were so bad that my friend and I, 

hidden in the blankets, duck taped paper clubs, and we drove in circles 

in a parking lot to rid ourselves of the swarm. 

And we finally fell asleep, only to awaken to the proclamation 

that we needed to stop to scrape mosquito jelly off the headlights so they'd shine again. Disgusting! Then back to the land too dry for bugs, where I can bicycle out into the desert and sleep on a blanket in the summer night sand.