I climb from the car,

stretch my legs like a wintered spider,

and blink to accustom myself

to the new slant of  light.

The leaves in the parking lot rush to greet me,

brush against the tops of my shoes

and swirl around my ankles.

As I push through the heavy glass doors,

I see the secretary's desk

empty-

too early for her arrival.

No sound

save the driving arpeggios

of a lone pianist in the distance.

Only a month gone.  Who am I?

Who is this grey mouse

who drags her wet wooly heart behind her,

and now tiptoes down the long hallway

as if walking were a sacrilege

and breathing a sin?

When did the block walls fade to grey?

When did the rooms grow so far apart?

The last month has curled up and tumbled away,

yellow giving way to brown,

to black,

leaving me startled at the jumble of unopened letters,

the piles of red-pocked term papers

stacked on my desk,

the tethered phone

blinking incessantly.

I remove the sign on my door:

DO NOT ENTER: MUSICIAN WORKING

and scrape off the sticky remnants

of tape that still outline the now empty square.

I take down the helter-skelter posters,

and the out-of-date notices

that jostle each other for attention,

leaving the nude cork raw,

stubbled with thumbtacks.

The clock snaps to attention at 9:00.

The students begin to arrive

in streams of loopy yellow,

barging through the front doors,

red knots of giggles

and unintended rudeness.

I feel ragged and soft,

unfamiliar in this familiar world,

still trying to shake off  images of a burning plane,

and a fog-shrouded bagpiper climbing the hill

next to an empty hole in the ground.

How strange it is to be here,

for I have returned  like a prodigal daughter

from a distant shore,

having been garroted by the cruelty of the world.

The first student of the semester

knocks sharply on the door and as she enters

lowering her self-conscious eyes,

I swallow deep into my bones.

I straighten my skirt,  

look up

and smile.

—Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios' award winning chapbook, Special Delivery, was published in 2016.  She has poems published in various anthologies and journals including Stories of Music, Love Notes from Humanity, Poeming Pidgeon, Passager, NILVX, Unsplendid, and the American Journal of Poetry, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  She is a Professor Emerita from American University, artistic director of the Redwoods Opera in Mendocino, California, a member of international Who’s Who of Musicians, and is past National President of the National Opera Association. She has spent much of her life performing as a singing artist across Europe and the United States.