I am asking you to come back home

Edvard Munch

Spring

I am asking you to come back home

I am asking you to come back home
Before you lose the chance of seein’ me alive
You already missed your Daddy
You already missed you Uncle Howard
You missed Luciel.
I kept them and I buried them.
You showed up for the funerals.
Funerals are the easy part.

You even missed that dog you left.
I dug him a hole and put him into it.
It was a Sunday morning, but dead animals
don’t wait no better than dead people.

My mamma used to say she could feel herself
runnin’ short of the breath of life. So can I.
And I am blessed tired of burying the things I love.
Somebody else can do that job to me.
You’ll be back then; you come for funerals.

I’d rather you came back now and got my stories.
I’ve got whole lives of stories that belong to you.
I could fill you up with stories;
stories I aint told nobody yet,
stories with your name, your blood in them.
Aint nobody gonna hear them if you don’t
and you aint gonna hear them unless you get back home.

When I am dead, it will not matter
how hard you press your ear to the ground.

~ Jo Carson ~