“Homecoming” by Michael C. Paul

I went back to that city on the plain;
Had not been back in nearly twenty years.
It got a little bigger ’round the edge;
The trees were taller than when I was young.
A new store here, a restaurant there,
A coat of paint, new blacktop laid in parts,
The traffic thicker, empty lots now filled,
But people there had not changed much at all.
I came to see I hadn’t missed a thing,
And drove back home a bit sad I had come.

Michael C. Paul is a writer, illustrator, and historian living in Virginia. His work appears in The Lyric, Amethyst Review, Havik, The Sunlight Press, and The Orchards Poetry Journal. He is a four-time award winner in the 2026 Poetry Society of Virginia annual contest.