I.
I’m walking again after all this time.
How I’ve missed the cool air, the pound of feet, the swing of the gait;
the opening—of breath, pelvis, thought.
Whenever I walk, I think of Mom, equipped with powerbar and water bottle,
throwing her leg up against a tree in some random front yard to stretch
while I look the other way and pretend not to know her.
I pass houses, streets, mountains; a young boy on a bike.
Something inside me waves.
I see a No Outlet sign and wonder why they no longer call it a Dead End.
Maybe people protested having the word Dead on their street.
I’ve seen streets with names like Poorman Road and Crestfallen Alley.
How do streets get their names? I guess you could do worse.
I grew up on a dead end street; we wore that sign proudly.
But people still ignored it, speeding down the hill, stopping abruptly to turn around.
In winter, they would spin their tires, fighting ice and snow and gravity.
Dad would put on his hat, coat, and gloves and go give them a push.
II.
A young girl is telling us what we already know,
what we don’t want to know,
what some deny so fiercely they choose to hate a child.
We have gone a long way down this road;
the signs surround.
We are stuck trying to turn around,
a large vessel mired in guilt, anger, gravity, time.
And time is up.
