estranged
e-
strange-
d
…I
don’t know why they should want to come back.
I was reading about some men who had been
buried under a mountain, I said to her, and
one of them came back after two months,
digging himself out. It was in Switzerland,
you remember? Of course I remember. The
villagers tho’t it was a ghost coming down
to complain. They were frightened.
William Carlos Williams
The Horse Show
They don’t want you
when you return a long time away
coming up late
the lane they don’t even know
you’re arriving and they’re shocked at the pane
of glass in the door and they nearly close it
in your face you can see the ache
of it in their own the ache of the place
they stayed on and remained
while you got away
while they felt betrayed
all the while preying on
the loss the sympathy of you being
gone like you were. Gone for days that went on into
weeks then on into months then
good enough to last years
and here you are again
at the door of the house
that raised you
knocking on the frame
waiting to be let in—
they feign goodwill shock heart-
warming come in come in though they only take you
to the kitchen and don’t you stand
empty in their lack
of hospitality for an hour or more
no chair
no coffee or tea or tonic
no sign looking around
of the old life
of the other ones who went on
too who talked
of getting out but never
really could or did
And who is it first to show you
to the door? Later, saying
you can never go back
again
you’ll finally be: be able to say
but wasn’t that door closing
like a coffin lid
soft as a sigh almost nobody hears least of all
the one whose hands
are on the lip of it
and pulled away quickly
glancing the knuckles with the weight
before it shuts completely
and is turned away from
in perpetuity
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