Ed Ochester: Note for Door

Today when I woke
you were gone
and I
was like a salesman
in a small-town hotel room
drunk on loneliness
and listening to laughter
next door
and I was
a boy scout marooned
in a dry-rotted cabin
by the greatest snowstorm
ever seen in northern Vermont
listening to strange birds
scratching the roof
and I was
a man coming home
to his house full of children
and finding nothing there
but the echoes of his scream.
I am going out now
to look at
the green ducks
paddle nowhere
on the river
but if you should return
while I’m out marking time
this is to tell you
I’m home.