Back. Back to that long-ago place

One. More. Time.

But unlike Dorothy,

The fanciest shoes I own

Cannot take me there.

Their clicks are mute.

Moot.

Moo—t.

Like cows who never come home to rest.

 

And in my imaginings—

Be they wakeful or beyond—

No warmth can match Grandma’s arms,

Holding me when I hurt,

When life crowds too close.

Can enfold me.

Hold me.

Rabbit Hole for me.

Like Alice and her looking glass.

 

That mirage, of what once was,

Wavers in the distant fog,

Tempts me close out sanity;

And walk the corridor

To a place where change is coin at best.

Second star to the right,

Through the night,

One-way flight.

To Neverland and Peter Pan and what was—but is no more.