standing there

thumb out

heading for home

first shore leave

in a little while

to get there & find

home was not there

finding the dead inside

of knocking on

my mother’s door

people there saying

she’d been gone

six months or more

no forwarding no phone

turning round to leave

nowhere to go

no people to see

standing in the night

trying to get back

to the ocean

knowing there’d be

somebody there

might accept me