Dina L. Relles

Boxes line the study walls,
still packed.

Stoic smiles traded in school hallways,
in passing.

I rush home to be enveloped in
a quiet house that’s not mine.

I let no one in.

It feels,
it is,
temporary.

A walk on wet sand without a trace.
A swim through water without a wake.

But I don’t fly by night.
I sink in.
Roots and routine.

A front stoop, a yellow bedroom, a key hook.

I thunder down stairs with elephant grace.
I leave a mark.

The minivan strains to life.
We take our weekends to the road.
Its asphalt familiar, perpetual.

Strips of space,
bracketed by bridges,
rising high above rivers.

We wonder about falling and flying.
We find our way there.

At exit 7 or 8, barns line the turnpike.
Peeling paint, parked tractors, land stretches, lives lived.

That could be our farm, I think.
Our rocking chairs on the porch.

When you live nowhere,
home can be anywhere.

A suspended, imaginary life.
Fleeting, receding into the rearview.

A holding pattern is not a home.