I turn toward home. I am carrying something-maybe the twenty years of life that have been lived since I left this small town.

At the top of the hill I stop. Taking a deep breath I run wildly down the last block toward home and push open the heavy front door. The house is silent.

This place is a little different. I search every room. All the rooms look as they used to, except that nearly all the furniture is gone. All, except the twin beds in my room and the table in then kitchen. Three d resses from my school days hang in my closet.

I feel content to be here. In my dream I stand at the front door looking up toward Main Street. I wait. I watch. Perhaps I am waiting to go where everyone else has gone.

In the innocence of a lost childhood I am waiting for something. Is it death? Or a new beginning in life?

POEM

The original dream meant something slept

and slipped and surfaced

from the subtlety of several

inter-mingling slices watered together-

that wept together-

taking flesh for the paying

of the original day at waking.

 

Leigh Banks

Virginia Beach