My neighbor died last week.
The plastic-wrapped newspapers,
Yellow, blue, unread,
Congregate at the end of her driveway.
The tongue of the mailbox
A communion of catalogues and bills,
Postcards to the dead.
I call the post office, recycle old news,
Wait for a strange car, sudden moving truck,
Distant relative, but none appear.
Each day, before dawn, the street flows dark
Below the grassy banks of her house.
Its candlelight bulbs illuminate all but one
Window, as if Advent were April, as if spring
Were prying open the last sash,
Trying to ignite its square of trapped night.
Ken Craft is a teacher and writer living west of Boston. His poems have appeared in The Writer's Almanac, Verse Daily, Plainsong, Gray's Sporting Journal, The MacGuffin, Off the Coast, Spillway, Slant, and numerous other journals and e-zines. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Lost Sherpa of Happiness (Kelsay Books, 2017) and The Indifferent World (Future Cycle Press, 2016).
No comments:
Post a Comment