home isn't here

my dad wakes up early every day

so he can sit on the porch

and watch the sunrise. 

he’s been leaning back in the same

rod iron chair since I was small enough 

to sit in his lap. 

If someone wanted to know what Texas is like 

I’d tell them it smells like warm grass clippings

touched by a blanket of dew each morning. 

Texas is where the scent of rain lingers for days after the storm has passed. 

It is rays of sun falling down and scooping up the dew so that when you walk to school your clothes are damp by the time you sit down at your desk. 

Texas is wood chips around a flower bed, mosquito spray in the backseat of the car and citronella candles on every outdoor surface as soon as spring is on the calendar. 

Texas is where the leaves clap together and keep time for the rest of us as we march in and out of tall buildings, traffic lights and the occasional cow pasture. 

Texas is spending the summer, carrying a blanket that’s been weighted down with hot bath water. 

Texas is knowing in August which friends have the deepest swimming pool and the biggest barbecue and the most chairs tucked in the shade. 

Texas is where fajitas and margaritas are served as communion and the minister at the table is usually the person who got started the earliest. 

Texas is the place I grew up but probably won’t be the place where I’m growing old.