even i will miss this place
i think to myself
as we separate our belongings

into two piles
there in the dining area
where i used to play with Ryland.
Everyone, (other than him, being only three)
has tears in their eyes
except me
but i’m still sad
not because we’ll never come back here
but because that very fact
doesn’t sadden me like the rest
even though i will miss it
but i like moving on-
i can’t stay anywhere too long.
But, i do cry-
when he runs down that hill
like he has a million times before-
a huge smile on his face
as he avoids every memorized bump and hole
and i know this is the last time-
last time to experience all the memories
we packed into that trailer-
into that farm,
where fear left us restricted and regulated.
But i pack the truck
and disregard memories,
never stopping to remember anything-
not the bonfires by the big log,
rolling boulders into dead plum trees with the tractor,
picking huge buckets of blackberries for homemade cobblers
from bushes that have been gone for months,
pulling the hose up the hill from the pump house
to water everything,
flicking mosquitoes off the screen door
at midnight, with a crowd gathered to watch,
or the smell of a sulfur shower before church.
i stop to remember nothing
by unintentionally avoiding him most of all-
more than memories, or tears
i’m avoiding the man who was my father
for four and a half years-
who we lived in four houses, a motel, and a tent with-
because if i think too long about him
all the memories i’ve left behind will come back
and as we finish,
say goodbye,
and give him parting hugs
even i really start crying-
and then we drive off,
for the last time
and he’s standing there-
crying, but not waving
and we all wave though the tears,
through the car window
the fence and the garden.
I lost a home
and a father today
and i can still barely cry





©Brandon Webb
2012