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i see you prowling the lawn near exit 407, keeping watch over your slice of I40 east.
in stark contrast to the fast food and fireworks to which the metal beasts flock,
your kingdom is quiet,
seemingly still despite the whirring, rushing concrete rivers on either side.

a blink, eyes back on the road, i see you pounce in the peripheral.
something unwelcome banished from your yard, or perhaps a midday snack crossed your path at last.
you must know every inch of your mid-road domain:
every orange-clad clean up crew there on your bidding,
every wildflower planted per your green paw plans.

and all of a sudden i am 10 years old,
forehead resting on cold, shaky glass.
you leap from your median to tree-top hop,
my road-trip companion while sisters whisper and play.

you zoom alongside, tomcat turned cheetah,
keeping me flush with daydream company all the way to florida.

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on a breather from this bonus day i watch the long-awaited snow show up. it falls in stop-motion frames, posing perhaps for my photo, which never turns out and isn’t worth sharing at all. per the plan, i was to be airborne, convention-bound by 8am. instead i was given a bonus day: to eat one more home-breakfast, enjoy one more slow work day alone, squeeze in one more sleep perchance to feel a bit more peace before leaving once more. i snatch them up: twenty-four extra bunches of sixty-minute bouquets, sweet with seconds that would otherwise be frozen by the snow – heavy, wet, and hardly worth the mess – a welcome surprise.

a late just write contribution.

february looms like a tidal wave, just out of sight.
i can feel him swell and roll, closer now still,
a fighter held back in his corner, waiting for the bell.

with the calendar flip, he’ll be released at last,
to charge and roll and come at me hard
with all he’s got.
and all i’ve got,
are 9 home days, the rest away,
washed out to sea with the suit-clad crowd,
a seatbelt sign, fluorescent lights.

with every checked bag,
another big picture view
of the rockies, mystery cities, your neighbor’s pool.
from 6D and 10A i squint sun-side to search,
i’m always and ever just looking for home.

linking up: just write