The path is always the same
The sequence is always the same:

The door of the school
The sidewalk
The sloping walkway down the hill
The concrete bridge over Ann’s Run
The crossing guard on Main Street
The gas station
The climb up Davis Street
The parking lot of the apartments
The empty lot with the long grass
The short stretch of Gordon Street that connects
………….the disjointed blocks of First Street
Mrs. Coffman’s house
The turn from First Street to Liberty Avenue
Home

The same pattern
The same routine
Day in
Day out

The door of the school
The concrete bridge
The crossing guard
The gas station
The parking lot
The empty lot
The disjointed blocks of First Street

Evenings spent with Mrs. Coffman in front of her coal fire
………crackling embers
………acrid smoke
………the warm sitting room
………the cold never-used living room beyond
She wasn’t my babysitter
I chose to visit her
I don’t recall our conversations
or her first name
only our connection
………The door of the school
………The concrete bridge
………The empty lot
………First Street
………Mrs. Coffman’s house

The last house before the turn

I don’t make the turn

A sound stops me
A wordless human sound stops me
An attempt to speak stops me
I look toward her porch
The screen door moves to draw attention
………to the moaning
………to the woman lying in the doorway
………to the woman I do not see because

I am afraid to see her

I cannot pass her house
I cannot run to my own
I am afraid to see her

I need to get help
I am afraid to see her

I run back to the corner
I blurt out to Mr. or Mrs. Shearer
………I don’t remember which one was home
Mrs. Coffman
The screen door
The wordless human sounds
I am afraid to walk past her house to go home
I am afraid to see her
I cry

The after part is blank
I fill in the blank with likelihoods
An ambulance
A phone call to my mother
The walk home with her

I do not look at Mrs. Coffman’s house
I am afraid to see where she was
I cry

Mrs. Coffman went to the hospital
Mrs. Coffman survived her stroke
Mrs. Coffman went to a nursing home
Mrs. Coffman never came home
Mrs. Coffman never sat before the coal fire
Mrs. Coffman never passed through the never-used living room

I visited her in the nursing home
once

Maybe

I was afraid to see her
I was afraid to see her as she was
now
I don’t know if I visited her in the nursing home

The path is always the same
The sequence is always the same
………The concrete bridge
………The empty lot
………Mrs. Coffman’s house

It was not the same
It is not the same
It will never be the same
Nothing will ever be the same
except the pattern
the routine
the path
the fear

– Lindel Hart