Homecoming

by Adhar Maheshwari

Above shrubs of gold and auburn
in a forgotten ghost town,
the grey skies darken the afternoon.
It feels like a dream. A bad dream. 

The road that wanders up the hill,
welcomed me when I was a child,
now it’s trampled, directionless.
Arthritis, maybe. And a sprinkling of Alzheimer’s.

I see my old hut,
still standing swooped and bent.
Amongst skeleton trees that remember
things that should never have happened.

What lives in my hut I don’t want to know,
though I do want to see whether it crawls or snarls,
or if its dying a quiet death,
and feeling right at home.

Arsenic is too old fashioned,
these days we use memories.