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Walking Backward

By Diana Anhalt

Late each night, woozy with sleep, my bare feet
traveled blind—knew one room from the next

     through warps in the wood, space between
     floorboards. Sensed their width and breadth...

For forty years I called that place home.
It still resides in me. The feet are last to follow.

     They fumble with the unfamiliar, reject the waxed
     surface of a new life, are the last to forgive

my leaving, long to return me to the old home—
unwashed windows, lopsided gate, caged parrots

     in the kitchen, geraniums. At night my feet step
     back, tread dream halls where faces linger

in mirrors, Spanish echoes down corridors
into a past I left behind. And there you are,

     waiting in the entrance. You lean
     against the door frame, ask: Como te fue?

How did it go? Red wine or white?