When I Think of Home

I hear the creaking rope

of a tire swing

just as I can feel those fraying fibers

prickling the tender skin

of my misspent years

spinning, the scent of rain water

sloshing in the rubber well

of the old Michelin

beneath my thighs.

/

I can hear the coyotes

yipping in the wake

of a ghost train

traversing those green

Kentucky hills,

and somewhere a brushfire burning.

/

I can still feel my mother’s cheek

pressed warm against mine

in an embrace

meant to slow the escape

/

of breath like seconds slipping,

the smallest of stones

sliding from the banks of a river

and carried

toward destinations unknown.

/

We think of time

within the confines of our lives,

just as we think of Death

as the darkness beneath the sea,

/

but it is the opposite.

/

There’s the taste of honeysuckle

dripped from pulled stalks

to the tongue

standing swaddled by such fragrant leaves

and the sweat sheen contrast

of a body in combat

with the Southern heat,

/

no shirt back

stays dry here for long.

/

This is the evensong echo

of crickets crying to Eventide,

while bats and moths

swirl and swoop

like dust motes in street lights,

their wings beating notes

on the treble clef of the night,

each in its own harmonious key,

/

where I’m still that kid

looking up from that swing

to watch the stars

glimmer between the leaves,

and forever still seems

like a baseball

the size of the moon,

thrown and sailing,

yet somehow

just within my reach.