2011 Issue - Santa Fe Community College

stare, saying, “That’s the number they gave me.”
Realize, slowly, that nothing will ever feel right again.
Leave work early. Resist the urge to drive by the house where you
grew up, the wide bungalow where your father lived for forty-four years,
the home he refused to leave unless it was “Feet first!” That place no
longer exists and if you turn back to look at it now, you could turn to
stone, like what happened to Lot’s wife, and no one likes turning to
stone.
Go home. Watch the president’s inaugural address on TV, even
though your father was a Hillary supporter. Cry during the part about
what so many Americans have lost. When your friend touches your arm
and asks in her most tender voice, “What’s wrong” Sob and tell her, “It’s
just so sad.” “What’s sad” she’ll say. Yank your arm back and yell, “The
poems! All the lost poems!” When she squeezes your hand and tells you
softly, “Honey, he said homes. All the lost homes,” decide it’s time to get
your own hearing checked.
Santa Fe Literary Review 53