You were once told,
“No matter what happens
you can always
come home.”
Come home,
I’ll be waiting.
So will the fields,
the tree by your window,
the collection
of match-box cars on the sill.
Your room is as you left it.
Clothes that smell of you
remain in the closet.
I haven’t had the heart to . . . .
Should you walk up the hill,
I will see
from my kitchen window,
the flurry of the roadside grass
in the rising dust.
I will drop the potato I’m peeling,
and my hands will fly to my mouth.
I will run out to greet you.
Embrace as you breeze by.
Talk story