Perigee                                                       Passing Time
© 2001                                                                   ©2001
 
You are                                                                    At night
the October moon -                                                the day 
Firey light looming                                                 peels off
over my horizon                                                     it's skin

rising into                                                               icicles drip off
the autumn night,                                                  of frozen stars
a helium balloon slipping                                       and flatten themselves
between  my fingers.                                              across our damp
                                                                                flesh

                                                                                 we fumble open eyed
                                                                                 on prickly grass

                                                                                 waiting

                                                                                 for the sky to bleed
The HomeComming
© 2001

    Kelly sat on the wooden swing, the very one her mother used to push her on under an aging oak, and dragged her feet back and forth to deepen the earth beneath her. The sky had just begun to glow and the early morning air was warm and moist against her skin, scented by the aroma of decaying yellow daffodils from a neglected flower bed. There were no cars yet rushing by the house as the sun’s rays began to lick the grass and trees in Kelly’s front yard. No noisy kids were out to play games of hide and seek. No sounds of clanking dishes and frustrated words from inside her house floated out to Kelly. Her younger brother Ben was still enfolded by sleep and her Aunt Jean was just rising, restless like Kelly, after a sleepless night inside the humid house. It had been three months since Kelly’s and Ben’s world had changed and today it would change again. Their mother was coming home.

     Kelly could remember the weeks before her mother had gone as sharply as if only an instant had passed instead of endless summer days. She had relived them each night in her bed as crickets hummed and stars shifted in a smothering sky. However, it was on the nights that Ben had crawled without a sound under her covers to cling to her that a singular memory tormented her the most.

     Ben was in bed the night that their mother got upset and walked out on them because they had left wet towels that had made pools of water on the bathroom floor. Kelly had gone outside and waited on the porch in the damp night air for her mother to return. She had occupied herself by watching water run down the petals of tulips growing in the flower bed until the headlights of her mother’s car pulled into the driveway. As her mother got out of the car and entered the house, it seemed to Kelly that her glass-like eyes recognized nothing around her, let alone her daughter’s presence on the porch. With trembling hands Kelly had gone inside and dialled her aunt’s phone number. Her Aunt Jean had come over that night, and within days her mother was leaving again. This time her mother said goodbye and left in a taxi during the middle of the day.  Aunt Jean told Ben and Kelly their mother was going to visit a place called Homewood.

     House and car doors had just begun to open and shut in various driveways along the street as the air warmed and the sky lightened. Kelly had stopped running her feet through the dirt and sat absolutely still, lost in thought, long before her younger brother came up behind her and tugged at her sweatshirt sleeve.

     “Have you seen the car yet?” he asked her, continuing to pull at her.

     Kelly turned and watched him fidget nervously with his hands. After a moment she picked him up and placed him facing her on her lap.

     “Not yet. Hold tight, ok?” she said, beginning to pump her legs to move the swing. Soon she was high enough to hit the branches with her feet and her brother was holding fast, squealing with delight. Under their weight, with the pumping of Kelly’s legs, the branch began to undulate and they flew back and forth under a green umbrella. They didn’t notice the car pull into the driveway until they heard the sound of car doors opening and closing and their aunt’s voice mixing with one heard only in memory during the past three months. That voice turned Kelly’s legs to lead and the swing began to loose momentum. The two children were brought back to the earth as the swing stopped and their mother approached them.

     Kelly got off the swing, still holding her brother, and their mother’s arms encircled them. Kelly was dimly aware of accepting the embrace, but in her mind she was still soaring through the branches on her swing. Even as she handed her brother over to her mother and they entered the house with their aunt she was lost in a green canopy dashed with streaks of blue.