Leaving Home

When I see the photographs now of the
very empty house when
the movers had come and taken
everything away
(remember they left the blue runner)
I think about change,
how blithely we walk into
uncertainty, how on the
before side of after, we do
not yet feel the loss, the distance
has not lengthened into the past.
That night when the house was
finally empty, before I left and closed
the door of my house
one last time, I
filled my deep bathtub with cool water
and eased my tired body down
and tried to memorize the
moment and the place.  I summoned
memories and went about tucking
them into my mind and heart.  Later,
tub empty, lights off, dressed again
and ready to leave for good,
I knelt on the hardwood floor of the
kitchen and thanked my house
and kissed my house
goodbye.