Jumping spiders
Very big ants
A brown grasshopper on the freshly painted front door
The whispery poplar tree in the back yard
Canada geese honking overhead
Quails running into the blackberries at the end of the dead-end street
The wuhf of the neighbor’s Basset Hound
The big, empty softball field behind the Mormon church
Box elder beetles walking across the driveway
Skylights
Air conditioning
The Swiffer
The oven, which beeps annoyingly whenever it’s done something that other ovens take no pride in, like reaching the temperature I set it for
The sliding screen door that doesn’t latch
My neighbor, whom I can barely see over the back fence, a man who never seems to wear a shirt and may be naked entirely
Middle-aged women talking to themselves in the aisles of the Shop-N-Kart
The gun aisle at Bi-Mart
The two horses grazing across the street, their long tails sweeping across their hocks
My neighbor Alissa, who goes for walks in the middle of the day
My neighbors, two young men who open their garage door on hot days and play ping-pong
My garage, which smells like my father’s work clothes
I love listing poems like this. You painted a clear and personal picture. d
ReplyDeleteYou've given the reader the meat of the neighborhood, just enough to envision a likeness to our own areas.
ReplyDelete