coming home, home coming
by Elizabeth Brueggemann
Bonfire yard, and all the teenage things—car keys, block heel—get lost
tossed to dark-pooled grass in the after-dance cascade
Auburn crown of short thick whorls seats herself at bench’s end,
tunes her deck of telling and speaks in soft cascade
She opens windows in me—barely moves her hands—
plucks a card that knows I never effortless-anything—I do not cascade.
All rush and rim, love comes in like wind—
a show of her backless dress and its flow-black cascade
My seized-up knot, my ball of rope, turns one thin shoelace
and slips through its tie, loose in a longing cascade
We could flow together sometime, I hope, her company
vibrato through the pool of me, and the breezes nighttime cascade
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