Orbit - By Diane Severson Home has always had the comfortable pull of gravity. When I was small I ran in circles From Living Room through Dining Room To Kitchen and on again. The origin of my flight and orbit. Observe the lumps to prove my bumpy take-off. Home was a welcome constant - The point from which my outward spiral began. The tap, tap, tapping of her typing And the tinkling of her piano playing Was a comfort as I drifted off To sleep preparing for what came next. With lift-off came revolutions Around town and then country. Even traversing the water Could not sever or break The tether, proving it robust. The pull of Home was steady And so required the occasional return Of the prodigal daughter. I was not long enough in any one place To call another Home. She is letting go of the house now. A heaviness of loss Is jumbled with a lightness Of being cut loose. Where will Home be now? She is free now to reposition Her own orbit around my big, beloved brother Whose own focal point long shifted long ago, He is warm and welcoming. But my new trajectory, Is a sudden, unfamiliar straight line, I’m flung outward and away. Where will it lead? What new center will be found? Will its pull of gravity be strong enough? I hold still and open my senses, hoping I might Hear that tapping, that tinkling. But I realize what I’m hearing Is a pitter-pattering and My apprehension is relieved. I’ve found an axis to revolve around. And as I spiral in once more I settle into its enveloping gravitation And find I’m settling in around Myself, my family. Home at last. previously published in Mystic Nebula, 2013 (a now defunct web magazine)