"The Walk Home"
A
poem by Therese Halscheid
Each day the curtains part from each home we pass
and without clearly seeing them,
I can sense the widening eyes of mothers, I can feel
their thoughts through the windows
and it is all about the way
my father and I look
to them.
It is about it being late Spring and the fact that
he and I wear woolen coats and gloves
as we are always cold, as our lives are so dark
not even the sun can
save us.
It is about my looking
less than human, brittle-boned, slumped over,
I am that thin --
and certainly, it is the sight of my father beside me
who is near blind and brain damaged,
someone behaving in ways that one might find
in mental wards.
Sometimes, their curtains are torn far apart
so fast as if fate landed an illusion, something
that never should be, and nothing appears real
except for their manicured lawns
and the distance the sidewalks allow
each afternoon, at 3:00, as we shuffle past this
place of groomed grass and the scent of
immediate flowers.
Above us are always the
overhanging trees whose blossoming
leaves spread glorious and are just like
a wedding arbor.
So perfect, I think, for this really is
what we are married to --
this aisle, this arm-in-arm walk
after school from my aunt's house to ours
this street like an obvious map of us,
pointing things out that we
cannot escape.
|
