Almost-home, sort-of-home, home-for-now by hil hoover

Almost-home, sort-of-home, home-for-now

we were here once.

we are still here, a little, once in a while, 

but the gaps between grow longer, 

the moments we simply don't exist 

stretch out for days, weeks, months, 

until we're seeing tenants come and go, 

the blink-blink-blink life of a house 

owned by someone who makes their 

money off the sweat of those who have

less. 

we were here once, and we loved 

this house as if it were the first and last

place in the world, as if it this foundation 

were the rock of ages, stonehenge, 

the six grandfathers, the stone of destiny, 

our beginning and end, here, 

now crumbling beneath the neglect 

of lazy "deep" cleans that are never 

deep enough 

and a lack of the sense of belonging 

that makes a place truly home.

my son cried the day the pink walls 

of his childhood room were 

painted over that awful beige, 

the one that says: 

this is a place to stay, but 

only for a little while, 

don't get too comfortable, 

don't think that you can leave a 

mark, a feeling, a mood, a hope

for the future, stars for another

child to dream under, phantom hands

for a stranger to hold for comfort someday.

we pay no rent, merely visitors now and then

in this place, between the blinks, between the 

long periods of nothing. 

my mother-in-law fusses in the kitchen.

my wife mourns a garden that no longer

grows salad greens, ground cherries, 

sweet fruit for the mouths of babes

just off the tit, ready to explore 

what it is to nourish your body 

with what came from the ground. 

and I, 

father and husband and 

one-time skeptic, 

sit on the stump of a tree 

I planted with my own hands 

all those years ago, 

look out across a world

that has no room for the kind 

of life we once had, the kind of 

home we made, the kind of 

community we fostered with 

neighbors who knew our names, 

the names of my daughter's dolls, 

the names of the plants in the garden, 

the sports teams we loved or hated, 

which dogs to pet and which to 

give a wide berth,

and all the little things that make up

the shared life of a neighborhood

but sometimes, once in a while, 

when we are here, 

we all gather in the yard, 

all the generations of us that once

lived under this roof, loved 

each other despite our differences, 

and we put all our energy into 

wearing away at the fence.

look, the latest traveler to call this place

almost-home, sort-of-home, home-for-now, 

is shyly flirting with that handsome fellow next 

door through the broken boards, 

doing that age-old dance of 

finding out if their gaydar is 

leading them astray, 

and they're laughing, 

and we're all placing bets

on who breaches the property line first, 

whether the tiny dog curls up 

in the neighbor's lap as if they're old friends,

whether we can create another family 

before ours fades away.