Neil Carpathios
Another Summer Evening on the Block
Clothes on the line look bodiless and bored.
Roses dream of jumping down their stems.
A pregnant woman barefoot in grass—
inside her womb a planetarium.
Two old men argue on a porch
over what weighs more—
a laugh or a scream?
The guy in the sports car is thinking of the thigh
of someone he once loved
but wasn’t in love with;
turns on the radio,
forgets what he was thinking.
The neighbor’s cat, brain-damaged
from being locked in a Tupperware tub
by the five-year-old son,
staggers through daisies.
A failed marriage hobbles down the street
on gimpy legs like a broken down mule.
Everybody from their driveway points,
not recognizing it’s theirs.