Home Again
A grey squirrel sits where the tree house was.
Broken slats nailed to the bark hang loose as if now
even the tree allowed no girls to ascend.
Going back requires hope and defies
longing, is never a return to what was
but to what is now not.
Memory bends and stretches, shapes
a new creation: the loves lovelier,
the hurts harsher.
The lattice under the porch
where that damn woodchuck lived
with her yearly crop of babies is gone,
the hours inside the house are gone,
but the door is still there, blown open,
and the green shutters still cling,
though most of the windows are broken.
Stories told and retold over time,
each slightly different, each absolutely true.
The grass my father never mowed. How
the boyfriend who became my husband who became
my ex-husband who became the father of a child
he never wanted with me—fertilized
the front yard and planted ivy so my father
would not have to mow. Who knew
the ivy's long locks would choke the wall,
destroy the mortar? How each turn of my life
became a new road without my ever seeing
its one-way sign.
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