Headlights

    

I learned the language of headlights

before long division -

flat on my back in my Lincoln Street bedroom,

watching the walls come alive

with passing pieces of the world.

Light slipped through the blinds,

climbed the dresser,

crossed the ceiling

like something searching.

It took time to notice

the small physics of it:

when a car moved right,

the light slid left.

When someone drove south,

my wall filled from the north.

Everything moving forward

announced itself in reverse.

From my bed I could read the street.

A slow sweep toward the closet -

someone turning our corner.

A quick retreat toward the window, 

already gone.

The walls were a map

and I lay awake inside it.

Each car had a voice.

Mr. Jensen’s pickup coughed past.

Mrs. Alvarez braked carefully,

as if not to wake anyone.

Gravel, rubber, the soft pause at stop signs -

night spoke in accents I knew.

But my mother -

I always knew her.

Her engine carried a low, steady hum

that reached me before the light.

Even through glass and dark

it felt familiar,

like a hand on the shoulder.

When her headlights crossed my wall

they moved gently,

a pale ribbon of brightness

pausing across my pillow

before sliding on.

She was home.

So was I.

Years pass.

Still, sometimes at night,

a sweep of light across a wall

stops me where I stand.

For a moment

I am back in that room -

listening,

watching brightness move the wrong way

across the dark,

certain of the house,

the street,

the sound of someone I loved

finding their way home.

GBS jr

2012