constellations we mistook for footpaths home

Do not come back.
But if you must, think of me only as the mother who once
combed burrs from your hair

​

on the back steps after you chased the neighbor’s cat
through the winter-killed grass.
I wanted to scold you but couldn’t. You laughed too hard,

​

and I loved the noise.
Don’t think of me as I am now—hips aching and
hands that drop spoons

​

for no reason but time. Think of us, if you must,
on that August morning at Beaver Lake, when you
waded in up to your thighs

​

and begged me to join you.
How the water was warm at the surface, cold at the knees.
How minnows darted like silver stitches

​

trying to hold the world together.
Your swimsuit had ladybugs on it. Mine was a faded black one
I swore flattered no one,

​

but you said it made me look “strong.”
We shared a peach that dripped down your chin in sunlit strings.
You counted twelve dragonflies, 

​

then stopped when a thirteenth landed
on your shoulder as you held your breath.
Afternoon stretched endless before us. No longer.

​

Now something sharp
works its way between my ribs each morning you don’t call.
Your younger brother asks

​

where you sleep, and I pretend
I know. You don’t have to shoulder this house’s quiet
or fold the laundry you abandoned

​

on the day you left. This part of the mountain
is mine to climb alone.
I must go on living without expecting footfalls on the porch.

​

But if you look back—
please see me not as the woman pacing the kitchen at dusk,
but as the lantern

​

you once carried
on Halloween, its crooked paper sides glowing gold
with a borrowed fire.

​

Night will end. You will walk somewhere brighter.
I will remain here,
dimming gently,
still holding the light
you left in my hands.