In today’s poem, Elizabeth Tibbetts of Hope proves that warmth and love are possible even in a cold Maine winter.

 

COMING HOME

By Elizabeth Tibbetts

Oh, God, the full-faced moon is smiling at me

in his pink sky, and I’m alive, alive(!)

and driving home to you and our new refrigerator.

A skin of snow shines on the mountain beyond Burger King

and this garden of wires and poles and lighted signs.

Oh, I want to be new, I want to be the girl I saw

last night at the mike, sex leaking from her fingertips

as they traveled down to pick at her hem.

She was younger than I’ve ever been, with hair cropped,

ragged clothes, and face as clear as a child’s.

She read as though she were in bed, eyes half closed,

teeth glistening, her shimmering body written

beneath her dress. She held every man in the audience

taut, and I thought of you. Now I’m coming home

dressed in my sensible coat and shoes, my purse

and a bundle of groceries beside me. When I arrive

we’ll open the door of our Frigidarie

to its shining white interior, fill the butter’s

little box, set eggs in their hollows, slip meats

and greens into separate drawers, and pause

in the newness of the refrigerator’s light

while beside us, through the window,

the moon will lay a sheet on the kitchen floor.