Neighbor by Robert Darken

We rake leaves into moldy piles, stuff them
in paper sacks. The neighbor works too, his eyeglasses
spotted with rain. Ruined oak leaves cling
stubbornly to the ground.

This is not the raking I remember from childhood. Leaves
dropped from the twin maples like stemmed stars,
gold and red, woody and fragrant as apples
when my brothers and I in our puffy vests
plunged in, rosy and shrieking, the sky a lake
framed in the maples’ sudden black grasp.

And Dad, gray and strong in his flannel shirt,
prodded flame to whisper in the burn barrel
until the good smoke climbed to the heavens.

That was before he sold our house and moved
to the Home where he sits, watches football
with the volume too loud, the air inside
heavy with microwave dinners, newspapers,
wool sweaters, medicines.

Down the hall a neighbor’s door stands open. From inside
comes the murmur of a radio, the scrape of a stepladder,
the smell of new paint, the smell of vacancy.



Originally from the Midwest, Robert Darken now resides in Connecticut, where he teaches high-school English. His poems have appeared in One Art, The Orchards, and New Verse News.