Home

When I turned down that road

it was by accident, but somehow

I knew it was right.

It was like an answer

blurted out in the drop of a moment,

unexpectedly containing truth.

"Stop," he said, "we should have

gone the other way,"

but I couldn't stop,

not with destiny breathing down my neck

on the hairpin turns,

not with every jolt of the dirt road

scattering sparks along my spine.

He clung to the other side of the car,

almost wretched,

afraid of my search's intensity.

Still, I pushed on

past tall cliffs and the barren desert,

seeing only glimpses of hidden life

behind a rising smear of dust.

The sun was no lower when I stopped,

transfixed by its golden dance

in a dry riverbed.

"I'll drive us back," he said,

pushing my hands off the steering wheel.

"Don't you worry," he said.

"I'll drive us home."

I met his gaze, both of us

locked in the harsh half-light,

and I saw a thin flutter of confusion

spread across his face.

So, I touched his shoulder

as the distance grew between us,

and without words climbed out.

In the very act of trudging

through the forgotten dust

I raised my head and knowledge struck

through me,

knowledge as clean as the distant sky:

One day I'd come back to this place

where dead trees met in a perfect arch

over a one-lane road.

One day I'd come back, alone.

One day

I'd come back home.