LEAVING HOME

Their daughter moved out on a crisp Sunday morning
in the fall of her twenty-first year to her new home at 150
Joralemon Street. Her parents went along to help her unpack.

It seemed only yesterday they were diapering her tush, replacing
her lost kitten, and alerting Mr. Ziegler, the Principal, before
kindergarten began, that teachers should know she was especially shy.

After the movers left, father put up shelves on newly-painted
walls and tangled with molly and toggle bolts for a mirror,
lamp and pictures she had painted.

Mother wrestled with shiny brass rods putting up curtains
made from Grandma’s Irish linens, genuine vintage Damask,
she proudly proclaimed.

They scrubbed the fridge, cleaned the stove, and took
one last look out the window at the gold Saxon spires
and sagging balustrades of Our Lady Of Lebanon.

Closing their ears to the deafening sound of the tolling
of bells, they snapped photos of a ring of grotesque
gargoyles warding off rain from the top of the roof.

They sent for food from the Bedouin Tent, dined on a card table
on falafel, fatoosh, tabouleh, hummus and baba ghanoush,
finishing off with Turkish coffee, baklava and sweet halvah.

Their daughter stood tall in the doorway, as hushed twilight
descended, framed by pinpricks of starlight surrounding
her face, an angel deeply embedded in their mutual souls.

Leaving her alone, alone as a person could be, they walked away
holding back tears, waving goodbye, throwing kisses as if she stood
on the Queen Mary gangway departing forever to far away lands.