Coming Home

Coming Home



It wasn't the way your silhouette
passed behind the drawn shades in the attic,
just as it wasn't the “thump, thump thump!”
I would hear coming up the stairs at night.
None of these were what really told me that you had come home.

It wasn't the face looking down at me in the laundry chute
or the lights moving all over the living room walls and ceiling.
No, I was used to these and they really didn't surprise me.
At least not much. Not anymore.

I knew you were home the night I felt your fingers
once again digging into that soft spot
between the shoulder and the neck.
That's when I knew that nothing was over.

That was the night of the “thump, thump thump!”
The night I heard the door creaking open.
The night the moon turned red and storm clouds
passed by the windows.

Red like your rage that night as you slammed the desk chair
into the wall and sometimes still do.
I thought moving all these times would make you go away
but you only follow.

And now there's your silhouette
and the “thump, thump thump!”
And the red moon,
 red rage,
your fingers digging in
as the clouds pass by the windows.


--msl2022