A Trespasser’s Song
Author Note: This prose poem was originally published in the online journal, Outside the Box Poetry, book one.
It’s for those who are homesick, those who are sick of home and maybe everyone in between, too. Thank you for reading.
I once thought my parents would thrive there until one or both died or, better, I did. We’d drift off on a careworn quilt overlooking the woods where we used to clear paths by picking up sticks. Like how I always imagined it. A dulcimer sounds a hymn from somewhere far away.
Harrowing to think of it now, to care only of — clearing, making, painting, loving, praying, dying in the Northwest Georgia mountains. Here, when this house was a building ground, sacrosanct. I will suspend myself there — regardless of when I left and how much I visited. Because the girl picking up sticks and singing had faith, if only in the forest, and would have made it home more often.
….
But you, officer, you showed up, sirens on, parting the gravel as we stood wide-eyed in the driveway. We had zero warning. Such an injustice to us! Don’t you, of all people, take trespassing seriously?
We never called 911 after all: We could have handled this sorry mess ourselves, sir, divvied things up illegally. I can’t believe they sold the house to you, with daddy being a libertarian. He signed…
