Coming Home
Poetry about reunions, return dates, preparing a home, and the fragile hope attached to the words coming home.
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I used to thinkhome was a place— four walls,a locked door,laundry folded badlyon the back of the couch,toys multiplying overnightlike some tiny plastic curse. But I know better now. Home is this. A boy with messy hairand a grin too big for his faceholding his baby sisterlike she has always belongedinside the circle of his…
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For so long,home felt like a sentencemissing half its words. Beds madefor children sleeping somewhere else. Shoes by the doorthat did not belongto every pair of feetmy heart was counting. I kept listeningfor voices that weren’t there. Kept imaginingthe sound of all of themunder one roof again— the arguing,the laughing,the sudden crashfrom another roomfollowed byI’m…
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She scrubs, folds, and prepares every room as though order could bargain with the universe for the footsteps she is waiting to hear.
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Laundry, made beds, stocked cupboards, and careful little chores become a countdown to the sound of her boys coming home.
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The boys are coming home, but relief arrives carrying supervision, weekends away, and the knowledge that another fight may still be waiting.
Between Bruises & Blooms 