I want a word for how much one
can hate how well he knows a place.
That shed, three doors down that
I can see from my attic bedroom
once contained multitudinous mistresses.
My neighbor to the left unsheathes his
proud assault rifle to barbecue guests
while the coals scream.
I can no longer smell the honey-
suckle scent that distilled our stairs
and sidewalk. My brother and
I would pinch out pincer bugs
from those petals under a white
wood-woven tattered trellis.
Dog collars clink, and I know
which dogs they are, and which
owners leave fermenting messages
on liberal lawns in long laborious
streams; speaking profusely with
putrid diction. Just blocks away,
a son opens up his parents
with a pizza cutter.
I want a place where
the houses don’t kiss,
where the rifle-talk cookouts
are distant resonant palm-claps,
where the lawn is one long
rolling green comforter and
the history is scribed in the soil.
