HOMEWARD

Heading home in the night
alone
tiptoeing on glass
on glass eggshells.
I am the cracked egg
a cracked egg vase
spindly splintery
emptied.

Step high, step cautious.
Rolling pebble—a boulder
Ruptured concrete—a chasm.
Stumbling, stuttering.
Falling means shattering.
My brittle shell crumbling.
Ground into dust.
Crushed into nothingness.

Shadows flitter, winds flutter
Hunker tight, don’t stop.
Heavy yet hollow.
Upright by will and wile.
Foot up Foot down
Don’t shuffle.
Foot up Foot down.
Move slow, speed kills.

Wrench my eyes
from the road
and greet the light.
A soft orange blush
beckons
home.

Foot up Foot down
Foot up Foot down
Foot up

About the Author
Evelyn Martinez has attended numerous writing classes and workshops at the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of California Berkeley Extension, and the Berkeley Repertory Theater. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Nursing degree from the University of California, San Francisco. She has traveled extensively, and her favorite place in the world is Antarctica. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in bioStories, The Charles Carter, Entropy, Ripples in Space, Rougarou, and Your Impossible Voice. Her essay “If” has been nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize.