Away from Home

She lies down, underneath the desk, curled around the chair, back to the warmth of the computer, face to the fan. My feet are perched on top of the box--where they shouldn't be, also resting on the warmth of the box. We're within arms-length, easy to check on each for snacks or a soft scratch. And so I'm home and away at once, online and inside myself, writing flitting like dragonflies beside a railroad track. Phrases catch the light despite the rush of what happened everywhere over the past weeks. What might happen next November, next Friday.

She's sleeping quiet. Varda doesn't snore, just whines through running dreams. And I'm wandering further afield because I've turned on the music instead of the current run of podcasts. I'm back in high school, back on the Lake Jackson sidewalks, back on a trip in my grandparents' van, back in the shock of a different music store, looking at a stack of the stuff we didn't get as frequently or easily in Lake Jackson. Briefly, I'm back where bookstores and classrooms seemed like waiting for a ride on those tracks, the one that go somewhere else, through cities and apartments. They carry explosions and ideas.

Those tracks once spared my Dad, carrying a runaway reaction away from him, letting him pass into one of those big coastal plants safely. Or maybe that's just a rumor. Maybe the only thing that ever moves are commodities. We run in our dreams and stuff travels.