waitress poems

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

POEM FOR A NEIGHBOR

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photograph by rehuxley via Flickr

All summer you have been
pulling in and out
of your nearby driveway,
your flat green car
burrowing in my dreams
like a slug.

You are tall and ordinary
unpacking groceries
from the trunk,
then producing the key
to your dark apartment
while I turned sixty
behind curtains.

All summer I have been
swallowing tea biscuits,
cupcakes, easy listening tunes
on the AM dial and
watching you, my nearest neighbor,
always driving away.

Did I ever tell you
about my husband?
I ask one morning
after you pull out with
a blond woman in your car.

He died in a high hospital room
looking out on the highway
where at night the cars
glow like moving stars.

Did I tell you how he
gave out watching them,
waiting for a crash,
an engine fire--something
to justify his burning?

All summer I have been
watching you, waiting for
the hottest night of the year
when you will open
all your doors and windows,
and I will catch
the strange rays of your TV
rising from the screen and
moving through the space between us
like cars, like meteors,
the mosaic of a common light.

(I wrote this poem on my 27th birthday; apparently I was feeling old.)

first appeared in Tendril
reprinted in the anthology, Yearbook of American Poetry

4 Comments:

  • Just passing through on a suggestion from a friend. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words with the world.

    By Blogger Mommyleek, at 6:42 PM  

  • love and life, and death and sorrow. nice poem

    By Blogger Lucid Magazine, at 8:22 AM  

  • Thanks, angela and subversivee for your kind words and kind visit. Wish I could have offered you tea.

    By Blogger Patry Francis, at 5:41 AM  

  • this is comes on instant read to your poem

    All year passing
    I glance so far at you
    and I keep wondering
    How you live
    If I can get a close look inside your house
    Or even better inside your heart
    I would no longer be wondering
    My curiosity will be quenched
    I will no longer be wondering who you really are

    By Blogger iamnasra, at 11:41 PM  

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