Where the Forgotten Go

There isn't a sign for it.

You turn off after September and the air becomes heavy with October

as if someone left the oven open,

and it smells of wet bark and burnt sugar

and the matchbox your grandfather kept in his coat.

Leaves will never dry here. Never.

They will stick to your shoes, your knees, the back of your hand

when you lean against a wall,

and they will hold your footprints for days.

I've seen mine from last year still there by the mailbox.

Porch lights go on at ten to four.

All houses are waiting for someone.

You can see right in: two plates out, kettle just off the boil,

one chair pulled away from the table and left that way.

Hear that crackle? Bonfire, past the orchard.

Nobody lit it. Nobody puts it out.

And that's a screen door down on Elm that has been swinging shut since 1994

and still hasn't clicked.

The path through the birches is new.

Wasn't there last month, I swear.

It goes wherever you want it to, which sounds nice until you try it.

Don't knock at the yellow house.

You'll want to. Everyone does.

Someone in there knows your name and says it the way your mom did

when you were little, and then you'd never leave.

So don't. Keep going.

Past the scarecrows, all of them turned around to watch the road out

instead of the crows.

Past the bus stop: kids in bin-bag witch capes waiting on a bus

that comes once a year and is always full.

Here. Sit on the curb a minute.

It's starting to rain, that thin sideways kind.

Look, I should say. This isn't where the dead end up.

It's where the forgotten do. The names you lost.

The faces that became soft around the edges

until one evening they just took the turn after September and found October.

You've walked past me three times tonight.

You looked right at me under that porch light.

Treehouse. Cut thumbs. We promised.

It's fine. That's how I got here.