April Fox

Yesterday I drove down a street I used to live on

The house I started over in
is gone. 
No more porch that wrapped around the small interior
like a hug,
lopsided and rickety
My kids draped themselves over the rails
like old Appalachia
and called to me as I got out of the car,
Mom, did you get milk?
   Can we get pizza?
      I got my report card today! All A's except a B in math.
The cat came home.I gave him cheese.
   Are you off tomorrow?

My son hung Christmas lights while I was working
and I came home to a house lit up from both sides
little faces peering through the windows
I was always coming home, it seems
but I don't remember leaving. 

This is where we wrote with sidewalk chalk, drew big bright suns that ended up with tracks
from roller skates run through 

The air was sweet with pot and sour from the distillery and a constant reggae beat blew leaves over
from across the street

The neighbor's dog strolled in, flopped down to watch cartoons with the rest of the kids
My smallest one, then
used the dog as a pillow
Tucked her hand under one paw and said
Get Down's my best friend.

The days were endless there, long and tiresome and full of all the things 
that brought me life and yesterday

I drove by the place it used to stand,
our little white house with the saggy porch and the hole in the ceiling and every room painted
a different color, the kitchen floor tiles
black and white
the stage for fashion shows and cooking shows and shows of disappointment when the food stamps didn't stretch as far
as we tried to make them go. 

I drove by there, the patch of naked dirt and kept on going.

Later I drove through the neighborhood where the least part of my new life started to unravel

Then past the turnoff to the place it came apart before that and where I realized, much later
that I could finally breathe again
That I didn't need to make excuses to hang on and didn't care to hear excuses
for the things that led me there and I drove home, then,
yesterday
listening to the chatter in the backseat
forgetting all the garbage in the places left behind
Home, to the reality that sometimes when the trash is taken out
something beautiful is left in exchange
Home, to life again.