At
Home
She’ll be there, still curled in
the green chair,
braless and blonde, her messy
hair falling around her face,
her eyes affixed, amused, to
words on her lap.
She might have read them faster,
but she likes
to let them settle in her brain,
to wonder what might be true
if these new words are also
true. The world is burning.
And when she smiles you want to
know if her heart pitched
when she heard the garage door,
if she pictured your face
at the top of the stairs and
wanted your warm hands
anywhere, just anywhere near her,
but you already know because you
usually do.
She says she hates you reading
her mind, but you know
that’s a lie because she smiles
when she says it:
The world is burning and she
loves knowing she’s known.
Her feet are cold. Arms around
her, you’ve felt your own heat
sink to her last toe and thrilled
to do it again and again.
She’ll be there and she’ll smile
at you and that old green chair
won’t look so ugly anymore, even
as you wonder how long
it takes to read seven stories if
you haven’t got all day.
She calls on God in gasps
sometimes. You laugh,
but by God, isn’t this something?
