Homecoming

An eagle seeks at evening its aerie.
The fox returns to its den.
The sea-weary sailor steers homeward.
A rooster beds down with his hens.

Children often return to the home site
and the town that as children they knew.
For men it’s the same old returning
to a woman’s body anew,

not so much for sexual excitement,
as the quieting comfort of touch,
the freedom, if briefly, from thinking
of a job that requires too much;

instead to admit his own weakness,
and submit in that weakness to love
where there is no competition
and the only essential is trust.