:: A Visit Home // A Gavitt

 

for Primrose and John Gallimore

A visit home
too short as always but
at the last I rested my spirit
in your house
two days and one night
of heart’s stillness
Fed by more than food
I was;
and a thirst greater than the body’s
received a few hours’ rain

Because you knew my mother
and my father
welcomed them
made their lives rich
and have done the same for me
I love you as the limbs of
my family
I grieve the speed of my appearances
and disappearances and
mourn the long years and oceans in between

It is my longing to come again
that we may be to each other
a memory of light or of
a scent of baking—
something remembered with the heart, stored
at the cellular level
not separable even by
the miles in their thousands
or time too long away.

 


A Gavitt currently calls 60202 home.

Gavitt is known to illustrate and narrate worlds both familiar and fantastic. 

Find more from A Gavitt at annegavitt.com.