What is the Earth? By Sharon Olds

The earth is a homeless person. Or

the earth’s home is the atmosphere.

Or the atmosphere is the earth’s clothing,

layers of it, the earth wears all of it,

the earth is a homeless person.

Or the atmosphere is the earth’s cocoon,

which it spun itself, the earth is a larvum.

Or the atmosphere is the earth’s skin--

earth, and atmosphere, one

homeless one. Or its orbit is the earth’s

home, or the path of the orbit just

a path, the earth a homeless person.

Or the gutter of the earth’s orbit is a circle

of hell, the circle of the homeless. But the earth

has a place, around the fire, the hearth

of our star, the earth is at home, the earth

is home to the homeless. For food, and warmth,

and shelter, and health, they have earth and fire

and air and water, for home they have

the elements they are made of, as if

each homeless one were an earth, made

of milk and grain, like Ceres, and one

could eat oneself--as if the home

were a god, who could eat the earth, a god

of homelessness.

From “Blood, Tin, Straw: Poems” by Sharon Olds (Alfred A. Knopf: 132 pp., $24)