How to Get Back to Chester by Edward Hirsch

How to Get Back to Chester

I remember the greasy moon floating

like a tire over the highway, the last

stars flecked like dust on the window

of my father’s garage. For years I’ve walked

away from the concrete fields of a lousy

childhood, the damp haze of life in Chester,

but now I’ve come back to follow the

moon through the toothed stacks of chimneys,

through the back alleys lit up by shabby

yellow lanterns. I’ve come here to stand

like a pilgrim before the tin shacks

holding their tin ears on the highway

while trucks roar by without stopping

and factories clack their fat tongues

together in wind. I’ve come here to listen

to strangers talk about football, to waitresses

talk to strangers. I’ve come to see myself

taking deep blasts from the old furnace.

Not much is changed here, yet

not much is left of childhood, either.

If you want to get back to Chester

you have to listen: you have to stand

like a penitent in your bare feet

and feel the air darken before a storm;

you have to stare at the one viny

plant waving on the family porch

until you feel your father’s grimy palm

gripping your hand, until you finally taste

the words at the back of your own mouth, saying

Don’t come back, son. And welcome.