Home (A Poem About A Mother Who Waits)

Mom wants you to come home:
I am not the older brother,
Only a goofy dad with teenage sons
Who is also a teenage Lucifer

Constantly trying to make my way
Back to the one whose heart
Burns for me to sit at her table
And accept that I am her child.

I’m learning not to be the star;
Perhaps you are home now
And I need to come to the
Home you have found

In order to be healed,
But the one who screams
Muted I love you’s to me
Every day wants you to know

Too that whoever said you
Were ugly and incompatible
With how they need the Bible
To be is wrong; you are fully

A precious child and a wise
Teacher and though you still
Do wrong and squander your
Inheritance seeking love,

The middle school girlfriend
You never had with tiny lovely
Hands intertwined with your fingers
And intoxicating pop perfume

Wants to jump in the lake
With you fully clothed
Or fully naked If that’s what
You need because she wants

You to see Eden again and stop
Trying to figure out who’s
In and who’s out and if you
Need her to be the wise king

Who embraces you in a way
That safe grandfathers can
Without any semblance of
Predatory manipulation, she

Can be your grandfather too
Or she can be the man who
Farted in the desert when he
Was joking with a Bedouin child

While fasting for forty days and
Then healed thousands of people
And fed thousands more and then
Died to say I felt it whenever

They crucified you and whenever
You crucified them and I forgive
You and I can sit in your pain
With you until you are healed.

You will be home soon and so
Will I and the one who is calling
Us will race from the porch to greet
Us like my grandmother always did.