How long since you’ve seen it?
That door? In every dream I heft its iron
and try my weight against it—
As if you were free.
As if I were free to come and go
without forgetting where I came from. Without
being forgotten. That old house
The latch clicked shut to seal your leaving.
It didn’t happen like that. I don’t remember.
You weren’t stopped by—did you say—
Moonlight? Sure
the moon did crack the night
above the maple branches—
You were young.
I was seventeen that summer,
licensed at last to drive myself
away from my father’s kingdom.
No one is ever felled by moonlight.
I was
frozen
by moonlit grasses
by the shadow of that farmhouse
three smokeless chimneys lengthening
to the road’s edge…
The same light?
The world was charged with a future tense,
choices easily unmade. All I wanted
What? What did you tell yourself?
Air. All I wanted was some air.