Home For the Holidays

Thanksgiving Eve at Motel 6, a day from home, five hundred miles of brake-lights, everybody trying to gather back together into family. Most of what I know of family is with me in these one-night rented walls. Bedtime, time to walk the dog. Behind the dumpster she wags her tail, smiles, and here’s a man’s face, by reflected light. I can’t tell, he might be somebody’s old high school teacher, squatting beside the cardboard box where he’ll be spending the night. His breath haloes in the cold. I don’t know him. My dog licks him in the face as if she did. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. A laden table, warmth between the walls. People who greet me by name.