No Homecoming

I have been sitting here

Since four forty-five

And now it is six

I have been sitting here

Under the big pine tree

Beside the driveway

I guess it is time

Time to give up

For tonight

But I will come back

Tomorrow

At the same time

I know it has been six months

And he hasn’t come

But I can walk around

And stretch

I know that when he got sick,

Sometimes

He would go away

For a few weeks

But he always came back

Eventually

But this time it has been six months

And I have been here

Every day

At four forty-five

Waiting for the car

And the shouts of

“Daddy’s home”

He is good to me

He would let me walk with him

On Sundays

When he would not go to church

And go “walk in his pines”

The red haired woman

With the green eyes

Told him he needed to go

He would smile

And say

He was “communin’ with nature”

She didn’t fuss

Too much

Then he got sick

Guess real sick

And he was gone

For awhile

But then he came home

In Blair Falls’ ambulance

Then I didn’t see him much

Things seemed to change.

He came outside

Once

For a few moments

Went back in

Quickly

I heard him say he was tired

But he hadn’t done

Anything

He used to be big

Strong

He has lost weight

A lot

The times he goes away

When he returns

He is always smaller

The red haired woman

With the green eyes

Had to buy new pants

And shirt

For a doctor visit

I was curious

So I looked in a window

One day

And this wasn’t long

Before the last time

I saw him

He was lying in bed

There was no wall switch

For the overhead light

So a string

Ran from the bulb

And was tied to the bed

He lay there

And twirled the string

It made a little clinking noise

When it hit the bulb

I could not see his face.

Sometimes,

And I have been on vigil

For six months

The red haired woman

With sad green eyes

Stands on the side porch

And watches me

For a long time

I can tell she is crying

I guess she feels sorry

For me

I don’t know what her problem is

But I wait

Each day

And I am satisfied

That one day

He will come up

Driving that ’59 Ford

And I will greet him

Like always

But now,

Here comes Leon

In the white Chevy

And I take off after him

The red haired woman

With the sad green eyes

Found Lassie

In a field

A mile up the road

Near Preacher Cloninger’s

She collected her twelve year old son

And a shovel

They went to bury her

It had rained

Hard

For two days

When he dug the hole

He tried to move Lassie

With the shovel

Brown, putrid liquid

Left her body

The boy got sick

But finished the burial

Lassie had chased Leon

One time

Too

Many                                                                                                                                     

David Richard Huffstetler

2305 Hathaway Road

Raleigh, NC 27608