#1 A Hero Returns Home

This is the first in a series of poems written for my senior seminar class. There will eventually be seven of them. 

The second time we moved, I wasn't home. 

I was in Illinois, trying to disconnect myself

from a life I already understood,

putting on my nightly costumes and walking 

the streets alone as if I had purpose.

I did this so long, I woke up 

one morning and forgot where I was, which life

I didn't love and who my parents were. 

They were waking up in Minnesota, 

my father to dry toast, my mother to sunlight.

They called me home and I found no difference,

the furniture, the same, was all there, but

seemed a little smaller. A woman

with quiet hands, my mother, 

she arranged that furniture, perfectly.

Outside, the sun is in the trees. My father

working in the yard, opens up the earth 

with his hands. He was there before

dawn. He touches dirt as I turn away,

trying to regain a few lost hours sleep.