It Was—and Wasn't What It Was: New Port Richey, Florida, July 2004 Poem by Dennis Ryan

July 13,2004

It was—and wasn't what it was:
the town, the familiar places, this one and that—
they didn't touch them anymore.
It wasn't what they had expected:
this was the only town they had ever really called "home".
They stared at the places, the house, and felt strange:
as if someone else, not them, had lived there,
had lived their lives for them there.But how?
They sat in the car and tried to imagine those times,
and it was hard on them then.The weeds had grown up,
and the house next door had been vacated some time ago.
Had the neighbors too become briefer ghosts for thought?
She couldn't bear it, couldn't explain it, couldn't face
their old neighbors and friends who lived close by.
She looked at the others sitting in the car:
they held onto their memories of each other too,
but it wasn't their memories that kept them warm.
Then she asked her husband to drive out of town.