I’m not Going Back to that Place

Trees conceal the maroon Expedition

as tires crunch across the red stoned driveway.

I get out, wearing tight blue jeans

and a tan lambskin jacket.

 

I pull a knife from my right boot

and slit air out of all four black tires.

This time, I say to myself, I’m going to stay awhile.

 

In front of my blue-gray mountain chalet

a white dress dances on the deck in the wind

that I left out to dry two years before.

 

On the side of the small wooden house,

a squirrel scampers through a pile of

crinkled orange, yellow, and brown leaves,

reminding me that I haven’t played outside in awhile.

 

In the middle of browning fern, a red cardinal

bathes in a cracked green birdbath

full of tree bits and free water.

 

I twitch, startled by the sound of that old

chipmunk running to his black drainpipe

home with no mortgage.

 

I rip my clothes off and undo my coarse bun.

My dark fingers move crazily through my hair

freeing my scalp from vain tensions.

 

My brown body scurries naked on all fours

across swollen tree roots, dirt, and dead grass,

chasing behind a wild, crazy-eyed raccoon.

 

Shawn R. Jones