My throat catches when I enter—such familiar
everything. My brother’s quiet kitchen. Home,
not mine but nearly. No matter how long
I’m gone, it still feels right. I drop my bags
and follow the voices, through the dining
room, up the stairs, and down the hall.
Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
My entrance. I see an Aunt Em looking at me!
And I see three Withenburys in a row:
my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew—
now finally old enough to turn the pages,
to squawk an approximation of “Em!”,
to swill water from a water bottle like he
means business. He remains a perfect
mystery, a mysterious perfection. I squish in,
it’s my turn to read the next page. (Good thing
I got here when I did.) We’re sardines in a tin,
peas in a pod, cards in a deck, like no time has
passed. But the lump in my throat says otherwise.