Homegoing

And what if dying is like

that time I got out of school early

because I had an appointment

and I pushed open the heavy doors

and walked out into the day

and it was a beautiful spring day

or a late winter day that smelled like spring

and if it was fall it was early fall

when it’s all but technically summer

and there was a whole world going on out there

and it had been going on out there the whole time

that I was stuck inside with time

and teachers and rules and equations and parsed sentences

but now here I was among the tribe

of the free and I could go this way or I could go that way

or I could just sit down right here on this bench

and look around at all the freedom

that was mine and also the work crew’s

breaking for lunch beneath their ladders and also the woman’s

pushing her stroller along the sidewalk and also the man’s

walking his small dog and smoking a cigarette

and it belonged to the cars whooshing by with a sound like

the wind in the trees and the wind in my hair

and the wind all around me and inside me

and also above me chasing the clouds running free

and suddenly there was my mother

looking somehow a little different

in all her freedom and all my freedom

until she rolled down her window and waved

to come--now--hurry

because I had an appointment

which felt like a real buzzkill

and I briefly considered turning around

and walking away from her

and going off on my own somewhere

to be alone and free for a little longer

or maybe for forever

but then I realized there was nowhere for me to go                                                            

except home

Paul Hostovsky’s poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog. Website: paulhostovsky.com