Homesick

Betsy Joseph

May 26, 2024

Determined to stretch his mind

beyond his West Texas birth place

and the generations he would leave behind,

my father hitchhiked his way to college

and to a different life than he imagined.

Yet along with new friendships and unstifled freedoms

he felt the tug and longing for the familiar.

Phone calls were too costly,

letters from home often too brief.

Once my grandmother sent him a cake,

his particular favorite, which my dad hid in his closet—

away from his housemates and friends.

He noticed the crumbs first,

knew they were not of his leaving

and accused his housemates, who denied

partaking of a cake they knew nothing about.

Shortly after, truth revealed itself in the form

of a small gray mouse scampering from the shelf,

up the wall, scattering cake crumbs behind him.

They formed an arrangement of sorts, he and the mouse.

Dad would continue cutting slices from the front

while permitting his rodent roommate to nibble from the back.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems which have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.