When I was becoming a teenager, the school bus took me home from Avenel Jr. High
(down St. George Avenue around the first ever U.S. cloverleaf intersection)
to the bee-sweet clover buds and bluegrass of the lawned development where I was formed.
And when that bus wasn't taking me somewhere, my parents were.
They took me to Debbie Kasha's house in Sewaren with the wraparound porch.
I came home thinking of the old beaches on the Arthur Kill, oil tankers, and railroads.
They took Debbie Zoba and me to St. Anthony's carnival in Port Reading.
I came home with the powdered-sugar smears of my first zepoles.
They took me to Verne Fowler's School of Dance where I learned to tie toe shoes
and met someone who wasn't named Debbie.
When I was finally a teenager, whenever we would drive down Main Street to Fords
(past Keith Poulsen house, next to the Armory, on the way to Cindy Hartman's)
I'd tell Gary Charwin, who'd heard it a million times before:
We're now passing over the only spot in New Jersey where these roads meet.
Look careful, from this bridge, when it's clear out you can see Manhattan.
Look at noon when the highways below us look like rivers of glitter.
Look at night when the sky is washed with lights.
Now, I follow interstates, train tracks, and flight paths.
I've written of rambles and rambled on writing.
I once lived in a house near the volcanoes on Kona.
I once lived in a brownstone on top of a hill in Boston.
I once lived in the backyard of the castle in Colchester, England.
I've seen how large and small the world is, but still I return
return home.
Here, crossing over bridges, I see the pencil line shadows of reeds rising along the Raritan.
I drive myself along New Dover Road to Chain O' Hills Road, singing the names of streets.
I go by St. Cecilia's to the smell of sweet spices where Green Street becomes Oak Tree Road.
I remember when I was teaching in Iselin, I had five Dawns and three Roberts in one class.
I remember Paul Balog's story about the burnt dairy under the ground of the shopping mall.
I remember rehearsing with Greg Stier in a basement on Florida Grove Road.
I remember the purple taste of tomatoes from the Gargano's garden.
I remember Lydia Gargano calling her son, "Aaaannnn Tuh Nee"
and Mrs. Mahoney tingaling ringing the dinner bell for Lee Beth.
Somewhere there are roads I have not traveled, but all roads lead here.
This is my prime meridian, the heartbeat of home.
Here, in Woodbridge, not Greenwich, is the center of my longitude, latitude, and time.
Here, my parents sleep soundly around the corner from the Reo Diner.
Here, my father snores down the street from the ghost of the Cross Keys Tavern
where George Washington slept the night before he became the first President.
Sometimes, my mother hears the Father of Our Country in her dreams.
Gloria, says George Washington calling her by name,
This is such an old place, even older than me.
Yes, she says, Have you seen the Barron Library?
My daughter reads poetry there.
No, it's not built yet, he says, But, I did see the Parker Press.
My son bought me a newspaper there.
Sometimes, my mother hears her father in the voices of birds.
I go under the train tracks and turn onto the road that winds through the cemetery.
I see the star in the stone that marks where my grandfather sleeps.
This is where his mother and sister and son rest.
This will be my mother's last road.
This will always be where I'm from.
This will always be home.