Home Coming

To go back to your hometown
and find it doesn’t recognize you.

To see your old house bedraggled
like hand-me-downs left to Goodwill –

gutters stripped, azaleas gone for no good
reason except it’s not your home.

To dread awkward reunions almost as much
as not running into anyone you know.

To get a little lost, finding landmarks
have run away with your childhood.

To startle at the silver-haired man
walking by who’s too much like your dad.

To feel gutted by the gap that was
your high school, but jealous

of a new museum and elegant restaurants
where you’ll never have a favorite table.

To understand this strange place
doesn’t feel like home, but always will be.

 

 

About the Poet:
Alarie Tennille graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She serves on the Emeritus Board of The Writers Place in Kansas City. Her last poetry collection, Running Counterclockwise, was published in 2014.

 

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