Starting again

My local grocery store had a sale on black and white composition books, twenty-five cents each.


I take up a new composition
book and a black ballpoint.
I start to couple words together,
not emails or explanations, not
a high whine of hope nor a drone
of expectation, not a plea
but my own words, pliable and
reliable as my thumb, a stone, the
oncoming fall, ripe as peaches
in a red glass bowl. These words
belong to me, they are entirely mine,
they will not board a plane and fly off
to Finland or Israel. These words
arrive and stay, they hold me close,
these dear English words sound,
in this quiet room, sound like
a voice out of childhood, a voice
with a lap. "Come," say the words,
"We were waiting for you. Come home."