I dialed the landline to my childhood home,  
let it ring into the past—  
again and again and again

I knew my parents wouldn’t answer.
They're both dead.
Still, the ringing soothed—  
each unanswered tone
a promise that someone,
anyone, might answer.

After ten rings, a recorded message came on.
The voice was full of girly twang
and the snap and pop of bubble gum.

The voice I heard was nothing like my mother.  
It was the mother I once imagined—  
carefree, untouched by the cigarette rasp,  
free of the heavy, deliberate tone  
that braced against disappointment.  
Not the chant of a woman  
who saw no promise in herself, only in her children.

Beyond my window, a sparrow circles,  
returning to the nest it has built—  
a place that still remembers its shape.  

The message ended.  
I let the silence stretch,  
listened to the emptiness  
on the other end,  
then hung up.

I noticed the heat bending
through the window's refraction
wondering if revisiting the past  
quenches nostalgia for the dead,  
gives my parents a proper ending.

I watched other people mowing my small lawn
under a bright sky,
listened to Spanish pop blaring from tiny speakers,
the music drowning out the din
of nail guns attaching shingles
to all the houses being built beyond.  

I move with the moment,
opening the window
to take in the scent of just-clipped grass,
dancing awkwardly to this music with lyrics
I can barely hear in a language
I'm learning to understand—  
laughing until my belly hurts