Going Home.   by Theresa Curnow.

The house stands broken;
dark windows,
empty eyes,
door a silent mouth
of chipped paint.
She turns the handle,
steps into dancing dust motes
amidst musty air
and a surge of memories.
The living room holds
dusty shelves
of scattered tomes,
forgotten words,
characters long dead.
The woman opens yellow pages;
her tears drop and stir life
and the words fly,
forming voice and soul.
She moves upstairs
fingers trailing,
crumbling walls,
to a place where
dreams and hopes
echo laughter and smiles.
Cobweb curtains cloak
all that remains
as inert spiders crouch
and watch.
The woman sits
on tilting bed,
the musty sheets
wrinkled
like her skin.
She stretches out
a gnarled hand
and smooths the place
where love once lay;
echoes of the past
she hears,
reverberating
down through time.
Years dissolve
and youth fades fast
along with dreams
of grandioise.
The woman stands
and pirouettes,
grey hair like an
aging fan;
the window beckons
and the night it calls
along with a familiar voice.
She walks with vigour
of youth, not age,
a smile like a butterfly
on her lips and then
through glass she glides
into the night,
a hand outstretched
to her love,
to the past,
to home.