Going Home

(from the SLCC prompt: write a poem about the process of traveling from one place to another.)

I returned to an old town

I’d once called home for

a few years. I went to the

park where the trees were

somehow smaller and the

fountain now dry and spray-

painted and the play area

was covered over with

recycled sneakers in little

pebble-sized pieces. I saw

a house that looked familiar,

the outline against the sky

and the slope of the roof and

the attic window that could

just fit a small boy if he’d tied

together some sheets to make

a rope, but it was shabby and

tired and an unfamiliar tree

grew out from the foundation

and blocked the front window.

I did not cross the street.