One Such Neighborhood

Last week, I was in the neighborhood
of

dead flower arrangements—
carnations from Mother’s Day,
singed and brown at the edges,
drooping freesia,
crumpled boutonnieres,
all bordering streets made from
square after square of yesterdays.

Rows of vases
with murky water
lined up their ceramic and crystal houses
next to the blocks of days:
each day of the week a different color,
blue, green, yellow,
some red with jagged writing and
rough like garden furrows.

I passed a park of silver bowls
which held crisp, dried petals,
potpourri sweet and pungent
pulled from roses clutched at dance recitals,
proms,
and weddings,
their ribbons lifting in the wind.

I sat for a while on pillows of plant food
and watched water pitchers
fill and empty themselves
in the stagnant creek.

On my way home,
I got lost on the road
of birthday bouquets,
their balloons having drifted away
or collapsed and puddled near the curb,
and found my way to the end of town,
following the straight weeks of days,
like pavers in a garden,
on which I visited the funerary sprays
before I disappeared into the hills.

**

Warning From a Scottish Fold

There’s a sign on my front door
that was first drawn in red,
but now, it’s covered with licks of white paint
an odd attempt to blot out the words,
but they will always be there,
although, to date,
they’re smothered in a sort of
pasty oatmeal.

The words read:
I Do Not Want to Talk to You—
underneath
there’s a picture of a sweet kitten
with round eyes and
fangs that go all the way to his feet,
a stubby tail
and ears folded onto his head
like twin triangles.
He murmurs at night,
as I pass the closed door
inside the house,
and he keeps the snow
from blowing in.

Once, I opened the door
and stood outside on the steps,
my bare feet searing prints
into the whiteness,
my breath streaming into the night.
When the hidden kitten on my door
muttered in Gaelic,
the snow hurtled upwards,
flying and skirling in a tunnel of flakes,
sticking to the moon.

**

What Happens to Busy People

While I had other things to do:
the folded scarf relaxed its creases
in the drawer,
the puff of soap
from the dispenser
formed a soft, skeletal reef
on the counter,
dust settled on the porcelain cat
and clung to the other motes,
the middle of a small snow drift
melted away
between the Japanese hollies
exposing a bridge of ice crystals,
two crows stabbed at bread chunks
and flew to the neighbor’s roof—
While I had other things to do:
a pile of books and magazines slid
to the floor
knocking over a glass,
the remains of the ice cubes seeped into the carpet
and swelled
like rings in a lake
like sound waves in the air
and the fibers dried in short, straight tufts.
I was too busy to notice all of this
because busy people
are productive and
then the future shifted
behind me
and I didn’t notice
that my best friend had moved out of town
and my husband went along for the ride.