Homecoming?

I follow the lake into Salò –

I’ve come to see where I am from.

Beneath the garish streetlamps’ yellow,

my feet echo along the prom.

I’ve come to see where I am from.

A pic on my phone shall guide me home.

My feet echo along the prom…

into deserted streets I roam.

A pic on my phone shall guide me home

to see the place where I was born.

As through deserted streets I roam,

the sight I find leaves me forlorn.

Is the place where I was born,

the walls and beams all rearranged?

The site I find leaves me forlorn;

it’s plain to see this place has changed.

I fall, my dreams all twisted strange

beneath the garish streetlamp’s yellow.

It’s plain to see I too have changed.

I follow the lake out of Salò.

About Homecoming?

This poem, submitted on Professor David Morley's 'The Practice of Poetry' course, recounts the poet's journey to their birthplace in Italy. While the trip was expected to offer a sense of comfort and nostalgia, the discovery that the building where they were born was gone, replaced with a bar, was both disappointing and fitting - just as the poet had grown much in the years since they were last there, so too had the building grown with them, both maturing into adulthood.