I Never Leave Just Once Poem by Frank Avon

I always turn back.
I never leave just once -
my office, my house
the attic or the kitchen.

Always I remember
what I almost forgot
or wonder if
what I left I'll want.

Once I was leaving
for good
where I had worked
for years.

It was midnight.
I was tired.
It was time to go.
Tomorrow I would drive

several hundred miles.
And yet I knew
there was one more thing
I had to do:

I had to write someone,
had to say good-bye,
yet there was no one
who would want to hear

what I had to say.
So I want back
to leave my key
and a memo

to the department secretary,
saying this and that,
nothing worth repeating -
and all the time I'm weeping.

I always turn back.
I never leave just once.
Freud could explain it,
and I won't deny it.

I always turn back.
I never leave just once.
because there's a chance
I should not be leaving.

What I retrieve
(and probably should leave)
is one last glance
at what I might still need:

to leave a book behind,
to keep a note unfiled,
to clasp a tattered flag,
to pocket a dusty weight,

is to hold an open mind,
to refuse to say 'Au revoir, '
to caress an ancient rag,
to insist it's not too late.

I always turn back.
I never leave just once,
what I retrieve
is the self I've left
and can never leave.