Leaving Home
1999

This is the drive into the story, the wet
road unfurling in our rearview mirror,
where we say good-bye to friends whose
walkers snag on carpets, good-bye to the
vet’s needle anaesthetizing our cats, their
bleeding gums; our own x-rays put off
another year; family fetes, the fear of our
not returning, also postponed another year—
the narrative now urgent to get back to its
beginning, afraid of being discovered, always
going the other way, hoping to be abandoned.
We see it only in our leaving—the white wing
that sweeps across the sky, carrying before it
the breath of departure, an inflated syntax,
the emptiness of clouds...

John Allman | Mudlark No. 31
Contents | Dust