My Neighborhood

My neighborhood is
empty like a
ghost town.
All the people dance
by and forget to
come home, go
back. They sometimes
forget about the
sidewalk and how badly
the road needs to
be paved. We
sometimes all
forget to remember
the cracks stretching across
our foundations like
weeds, and how weeds
can be difficult to get
rid of.

The neighbor Jim started
leaving a lot when
his wife died at the
elementary school
a mile from the
library
two miles from our homes.

The man and his
wife and his son
and his dog next door
go camping in January.

The new development
at the end of
the neighborhood got
new roads black
like the way blood clots
when there's too
much to wipe with a
towel. No one can
figure why folks don't move
in and start breathing
for the rest of us.

Because we sometimes
all feel like we
can't breathe,
even when it's not
raining and
even when the couples
from the other streets
in town stroll by
with Golden Retrievers and
new babies and laughing
like love sounds.

We sometimes forget to
remember how we
once were, pushing children
in strollers and
playing fetch with the
family mutt that died
seven years and a long
time ago from Leukemia
while the vet was out
for lunch.

We usually forget how
the neighbors
complained to each other
during our first days
here, about the
ruckus and too
much
too much
living out loud.
They would close the
blinds and deadbolt the
doors and suffocate
each other in private.