Home Again

© Mary Saracino


The chipped screen door
whined open.
Grandma turned
expectantly
from the stove,
leaving the meatballs
to fry and splatter
on the gas burner.

She smiled.
Her coffee-colored Italian
eyes arched in half-moon slices
as, arms extended from the sleeves
of her buttercup printed
housedress,
she hurried
toward me.

Tears trickled
through rivulets of wrinkles
down her face.
I felt her soft,
bent fingers
grasp and press
the nape of my neck,
the base
of my spine,
wrapping me
in a welcome-home-hug.


* * * * *

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her most recent novel, Heretics: A Love Story (2014) was published by Pearlsong Press. Her novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was named a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the Spirituality category. She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University. For more information about Mary, visit www.marysaracino.com and http://www.pearlsong.com/mary_saracino.htm