I come from a place.

I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it. Rehearsal today reminded me.

I don’t come from three California towns.
I don’t come from Altadena.
I don’t come from just north of the Los Angeles smoke and lights,
Where certain people can make a half million dollars a day
For having a fashionably unkempt hairstyle.
I don’t come from the yellowed hills of the Bay Area.
I don’t come from Pleasanton.
I don’t come from a blacktopped elementary school
With a buzzer
And buildings like abandoned wagon wheels.
I don’t come from the house that leaves
Nine years’ worth of memories to clog my cortex.
I don’t come from Alamo.
I don’t come from a one-story house
Built in the fifties
Where I still can’t remember where to lock the gate after
Six years.
I come from an isolated black box,
A high school I’ve never attended,
And an auditorium in Orinda.
I come from pages crisscrossed with a highlighter
And framed with notes on blocking.
I come from a mountain climber’s axe.
I come from Venice, 1941.
I come from a broken belt tied around my head.
I come from a trampoline.
I come from iambic pentameter.