Dear Houston: One Last Time

via // Southern Living

For the Old Shack on 7 1/2 Street [And All My Other Riches]

Sometimes goodbyes slip through the cracks.

And sometimes they are long, like a deep breath in

the middle of the night and a red light in Texas.

But more than that, they are richer moments;

They are Mexican coffee beans in the morning and

chairs around a folding table,

Tightly held hands while we pray - just to be sure of the other.

I need the goodbye, but perhaps you do too

and I never realized it until now -

when I miss the house on the corner with the dolls in the window

and ceiling-long bookshelves;

The bald man skating along Allen Park Way who never stopped dancing

and little girls under blanket forts made for telling stories.

I take a deep breath and it's gone in two minutes:

Floods of rain storms and fogged windows

Sewing machines, cement roads, apricot orange teapots

Dusty boots, scruffy dogs like

Egypt the puppy and

Nervous conversations. Hands I never shook.