"I cannot go back,"
I think to myself driving alone,
early afternoon, Rt. 7 North.
The last time I visited
the house where I grew up,
I felt like a ghost
there in the yard,
as if something - some secret misfortune -
were tugging at my sleeve,
begging me to stay, to remember.
A secret not my own,
but one I have spent my whole life forgetting.
A secret as old as the great maple tree
under which I used to play and pretend.
That tree no longer stands,
though its branches remain
scattered about the yard,
causing me to remember.