-third Swansea-

the guy who lives across the street

in the big two-story single family with natural shingles

has a wife, two very young daughters and a tractor lawnmower.

the front-yard grass slopes downward to the neat

thigh-high shale-stone wall at the road’s edge,

visually troublesome in its purchased-like attitude.

mid-May and the birds voices are pleasant in early morning

this end of Gardners Neck Road where the green lawns

lie mowed to the soles of the feet, and it’s woody here, and careful.

he has a small dog which looks like a puppy but it's grown.

his wife’s a knockout.

this morning she’s putting the trash

on the side of the road for the town’s weekly pick-up;—

not the heavy stuff, the guy puts the heavy stuff out,

but last minute incidentals like the small top-knotted

plastic bag screened "Stop and Shop."
she makes adjustments to position the bag neatly

placing it next to the recycling bin.
I haven't been here long enough to call it a ritual,

but I'm looking forward to her meticulous procedure next week;—

the early morning posture of a young woman

caught between coffee and tending to herself in the master bath,
with one eye tuned inward for herself and one
tuned outward toward the neighboring trash.

It’s another window to an element not far from the one

I know a planet removed.

yesterday, Harold Higgins informed me of a recent attack
on this end of the Road in which a coyote snared in its jaws
and carried away another small dog who's by now
digesting in the belly of the coyote.

but the chirping birds are nice enough

and across the street, the guy's daughters play quietly
on the front lawn close to the house.

the dog seems old and bone-weary and I haven't heard it yapping

or seen it running like a lunatic, or even shitting on the lawn.

I don’t look forward to the motor of his lawnmower
at daybreak.

her dressing-gown opens and closes the way the poets
have told me it would at the hem in a slight breeze.

the planted annuals along the shale-stone wall act the same way.

from the backyard, the river adds its western edge.

I can see it between the trees to the east where across it, upon the slow-

rising, densely populated hill, the real house used to be.

                                                                            5/15/12