double sided picket fence

the double sided picket fence

never noticed before

except for the sloppy spray job

of paint on the rhododendron leaves and holly trunks

a squirrel nest in the big cherry tree extending its flowers to the sky

and the petals keep on falling falling falling

in the early morning sun.

in rojava they rejoice for spring? and hezbollah overextends

away from home and

into the turmoil of big fish

fighting a shrinking net

as the earth warms

exhaust fills my lungs

and the organs slightly blacken

trees bark split

along the sidewalk a few suckers sprout

will they be cut down?

the squirrels have stayed busy digging

holes in the lawn where

their walnut size brains

can remember a million nuts.

and the backyard doesn’t drain like it used to

it’s all slowly settling

along the too thin foundation

built in the frenzy after the Last GREAT war

back when they were openly kicking blacks out of the neighborhood

before it was uncool to be racist

and you had to blame the market.

the river is pumping

running brown

with sand and silt and human shit

and the chickens all cooped up

and the cows all chickened together

it’s swirling swirling

robins sing and finches twitter, the siskins are out

digging for bugs in the branches.

the woods are full of hedera helix,

the ground ivy, and eurasian honeysuckles,

herb robert - the ubiquitous pelargoniums,

and crowded with the feet of europeans (I among them).

the cardinals beak:

purposefully asymmetrical to shed shells of

seeds with no fingers or teeth to speak of.

love blossoms down in the ivy, 

my neighbor’s (the sociopath) cat stalks across the yard,

and affection is like a battery, needing a circuit to work and be recharged,

even if through murder of the unsuspecting squirrel or songbird.