“The Storm Stranger by Stewart Stafford

Were I to shed forty coats,
Or forty layers of this skin,
I'd stay an intruder in myself,
At a crossroads in a storm.

Stranger in my own country,
Pariah to everything beloved,
Organ rejection by my own body,
A lantern wanderer in limbo.

All foul, cast out by my lamp,
Saving those mistreating me,
Traversing sanity's outer rings,
I turn my collar up and trudge on.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”