GROWING AWAY

GROWING AWAY

It is the room we dread to open

when we go back home because

we have to. You can bunk in here,

nothing has changed, you sleep

well in familiar places, don’t you?

Except that this room is too full

of everything I might have been

running away from: you will be

back for the summer holidays,

won’t you? Mom would like that.

I did not catch the train back,

nor did I try that summer when

father said he was ill: come home

as quickly as classes end, your

father would like that. Come home.

It has been some time since I last

dusted off the cobwebs and dirt

from the sill and the pictures

in this room. I stare at them longer

now praying they would talk back:

You’ve come home at last. Stay,

stay longer, we would like that.

There’s catfish to hook at the river

a stone’s throw from home. There’s

black berries to gather for wine.

They stare back at my wan face

from the confines of the ornate frame

and the bursting memories in sepia:

Father in white gabardine suit,

Mother in her white traje de boda.

I have come home, but I cannot stay.

This room is now full. And empty.

--- Albert B. Casuga