grow

in the morning when I watered the plants

the trash truck backed and beeped its way by and

one neighbor in an oversized black SUV burst too strongly

up the street, then gruffed her tires across the curb

squeaking rubber and scowling

as she begrudgingly let the collectors slip through

before she shot down the remainder of our little outlet,

her engine growling onto the main road with one last rupture of this morning ritual:

crow squawks and municipal noises

​

and even the family across the street, whose coop was clucking

into the morning din, sighed relief through breakfast curtains

as her roughness dissipated into sea fog and

the chickens quieted down, perhaps though just because

enough of their work was done to settle into a Wednesday’s dawn.

​

that afternoon I wondered what the other neighbor noticed

when he shifted his little red truck into park in its habitual spot on the curb adjacent to our door,

climbed out

and reached across the small cab to the passenger seat

gathering cooler, mask, hardhat.

​

did he hear you mumbling, crouched and staring

through sunglasses at a burst milkweed mess,

questioning the dry stems as you snipped carefully

around butterfly eggs and scrounged what had gone to seed?

did he notice me in the sun spot on the steps,

looking on softly from below a furrowed brow,

nose a-twitch at the sharp smell of sliced stems wafting up the walk from your workstation?

or was he as lost in a thought as we were, perhaps blind to everything but a summer moment last year

when his daughter bounced out of the passenger door and

soccer-cleat kicked that truck’s bumper

affectionately, her cheeks aglow from a well fought win, his too.

​

I wonder this as I hear Kate across the street clanging dishes through an open window

she laughs in her kitchen, preparing dinner for her wife

and the crows caw in waves, hummingbirds cackle at our too-brown salvia,

and you sweep the sidewalk smooth.

​

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