1. After last night's dinner you poured mint tea into a porcelain cup for your dad, and he laughed, saying, "Daughter, the last time we did this you were four." You replied seriously, "I'm living my dreams, Dad."

2. You go to counseling once a month and have been doing so intermittently for the last 10 years.

3. But when you were four years old, you had conversations with imagined dinner guests and poured water from a plastic tea *** like scripture from a pastor's mouth. You'd never had real tea, so you imagined it with lumps of sugar. From ear to ear your smile was real.

4. Five years ago if someone told you that your family would be sitting at your table eating your food on Easter, you would have laughed because you didn't have an oven or a table.

5. Five years ago was when you chose life, and everyday you keep choosing it--like painting over a crimson stain in white.

6. You like church because you feel like it's one of the few places you can cry, and everyone else seems to understand.

7. When you were little, you would say, "I want to go home" even if you were already there. You knew more then than you know now--that home is not a place, but a feeling.

8. Every Easter you wonder how the Son felt coming home to His Father. Sometimes you forget how heavy the stone was when it rolled away.

9. Your dad is the strongest man you know. He has bushy eyebrows; when he ruffles them he looks like a horned owl about to take flight. Your mom tuts and tells him he looks like he's going to fly away. And he has, several times around the world.

10.  Sometimes you want to fly away too, just to see what your hometown looks like to a bird, to fit your piece of prairie to the rest of the puzzle. To see what your dad saw when he flew through the sky. To see what keeps bringing him home.

Waking breath ghostly frozen, clang of ***-belly stove opening, cedar crackles good morning, sap sizzles, pops, melting.  Warmth finds children sleeping, humid air, mouth-breathing.  Smell of boy sweat and feet, young women ripely sweet.  

Cats purring, stirring, padding quiet down stairs, weave meowing through mom's legs.  Dented percolator burbles better days, snap of toast burned haze, molten mush bubbles burst, fade.  Birds early on the highway Paradise-seeking, time, flash-burned, fleeting. Cobalt jay mockingly complains, chickadee sings his own name, coyote wails, thin and plain.  

Children rise, sleep in their eyes, squabble over bathroom prize, eldest wins, click, locks herself in.  Hurry, hurry the bus is coming, ancient driver, annoyed and honking.  Brown-bag lunches crinkled running, feet slapping, seats squeaking, lungs hot and bursting.  Ride the dawn breaking, hearts aching for more than this, rural bliss.

Stop sign flashes caution, young lovers in the back seat, bodies in motion.  Stop, start, sway on down the highway. Engine mimics hot blood lust, accelerated diesel rush, nothing can stop us. You grab my knee - young, carefree.  Brakes sigh and hiss, sneak one last kiss. You mouth - meet me later, we'll sneak out, rush to a future we haven't got, ready or not.  

The old road at dusk, frog song accompanies us, bike wheels on the asphalt hum, forbidden moonlight run.  Feel your heartbeat on my spine, frantic drumming matching mine. Horned owl hoots, forlorn and bleak, a premonition we refuse to heed, reckless with need. In the clearing young love begins, forget-me-knots on burning skin.