Every time you go away
You take a piece of me with you
The song echoed
Like the memory of the family’s first color TV
Reminding me then in the 80’s
As even now in this century
Of a young MTV, old wooden floors
Of the former internment camp house
My father bought in Crystal City
Bringing it north to South Luna
Haunting me through the last thirty years
Like that house, no longer there
Its parts contributing to a new one
Just a few fading feet away
A long room made from a smaller three
Saw me as a young man growing up
Surely, slowly, not as clear
Each time it plays in my head
Taking off worn gray boots, torn white socks
To feel the rough wooden planks
With closed eyes, to sense
The one-bunk bedroom
For me and three of my brothers to share
That poor blue paint, cheap sheetrock
The frigid cold air of an old water cooler
Hitting my ageless, brown face
Waking up thirty years later
Singing the haunting melody
Every time you go away
You take a piece of me with you
Wanting, needing to go away
To feel that changing memory again
Closing my older eyes, baring my straining feet
Re-playing that common song in my tired head
On that old dial color TV
Back in that wooden floor room
Cracking a smile, young again forever
Juan Manuel Perez
www.juanmperez.com
