Getting There

Time to give up

grieving my mother’s loss,

faulting my father and

his Neolithic moral certitude

about every detail

on the evening news,

his general absence

hanging like the gray

sheets on the line.

Never mind how

mismatched in the heart,

I should be grateful

they were there at all,

for that moment

that childhood stretched

like fog, the beach empty

and unmarked.

It comes to little now

who I forgive, mourn,

or thank. The dust shifts

and we are barely

suspended in the light.

I know this little thing:

there’s a boy somewhere

in a station where

the trains still run,

wearing scuffed brown shoes,

gray overcoat, and cap;

someone has neatly parted

and combed his hair.

He is waiting

to be taken by the hand

and told where we are going,

to hear we are headed home—

though I can see nothing

beyond the smoke

and midnight haze

at the far end

of the platform,

where I am not

even sure of the stars.