Returns - Susan

After Christmas

I will not write about home.

You can never go back, that much

is well documented.

Here are the things I can return:

1 T-shirt, too tight around the middle

3 Spiral notebooks, poorly bound

1 Textbook, for a class not taken

One can give back what is useless, or broken.

One can lay claim to something new.

The former cannot re-emerge as the latter.

One can return, but not return to.

There are no stories in objects untouched,

spaces uninhabited, clothes as yet uncreased.

The old stories are gone.

They are in that home, whose doors are locked.

This emptiness is yours to fill –