Which way, Billy Pilgrim?

A going back.
I’m going back, or forward. Or both,
and every point in between,
Billy Pilgrim style.

Not a holy place, the place
I began, or the place I’m going.

Not wholly that place, or this,
but a place I can pretend is. There.
There it is. It is

in a wood, somewhere not far,
sheer, copper-penny
snake skins are slipped,
if not where I’d keep them.
And it’s there,

further on in that wood, trees change
but not the wood, and a sound comes,
just the sound, and then nothing more
than a ripple of chocolate-
milk water. It’s there, where now
jumped, and nothing’s gone

missing with the log lost underneath
orange lichen, I’m going. It’s there
I’ve been.