I turn to see if you look back, but you are
entangled in your leaving, drink cup in your teeth, carryon falling
lopsided from your shoulder as you wrestle your suitcase over the curb.
Then you turn, not toward the car, but away into the terminal
where you vanish behind sliding doors. And my hand raised,
anticipating your wave goodbye, returns to the steering wheel as I
begin the drive homeward, the music of the radio blurring the silence of
my thoughts.
Once home, I sit on the steps as the dogs
disappear behind the house. I drink my coffee and watch birch leaves
fluffed by the wind. Your flight will arrive soon, and you will
once more wrestle with your luggage. Later, on your way to
dinner, you will call. We will talk of idle things. And afterwards, I
will sip my wine, thoughts undisturbed by the silence
of the mountain night.
The dogs are running back and forth along the
chain link fence, barking at a passing truck. They have made a
path where neither grass nor weeds will grow. Some days they
cross the creek to sit contentedly at the bottom of the yard where they can see
the chickens in the migrant trailer camp, where a rooster crows at odd
times throughout the day. The indifference of such life almost suits me,
a life of partition, routines forged in isolation, bound in the silence of
my thoughts.
Retired after a career
of teaching high school and college in Norfolk, Virginia, Lynda Self now resides in the
mountains of Western North Carolina. Her poems have appeared in The
Southern Review, The Georgia Review, The New England Review, Southern
Humanities Review, The Threepenny Review,
and Innisfree Poetry Journal.
Recent poems have appeared Confrontation and North Carolina Literary Review.
