The Return

isn't possible, never was, never will be.

The same sun, though older by a fraction,

shines on the streets that bore my footsteps,

the same school, though older, shabbier,

larger and now shrinking again

as families have fewer children,

stands indifferent as it was then--

it was only my anguish that resonated

off the walls, lending it character.

The confectionery is long gone,

the Lebanese family that owned it

through my childhood and teen years

long sold off—what happened to

the oak floorboards and glass display cases?

The dump or some hoarder of

the trendy nostalgic perhaps.

In my mind's vision, I wander

those streets and alley-ways--

there were alley-ways, then--

gaze into the faces of people I knew,

strangers ultimately.

The Return is impossible

to a place where I never really

took root. Thus, never was.