I have not forgotten, neighbor,
our red brick rowhouse, tiny and quiet
with the window always cracked open
even in winter

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace, just off a major thoroughfare.

Long ago cloisters had the sacred Truth
of Holy Scripture painted on their walls.
These pictures warmed the hearts of men of faith
and eased the chill inside their stringent cells.

Star of a gnathic nightmare, boasting narrow
snout and jutting lower jaw, scissor
teeth and scaled cheeks

I’ve been grooming you for years.
                           Now I’m asking you to go

through the gate unafraid

At first puzzlement, then joy.

My baby in the making—surely my last—
would, like a ferry heading for a wharf,
know what to do along the way.

Tremor in his hands. He turns obsolete
leaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.
What he sees he reads under croton shade,
out in the sun.

A ribbon around an oak tree reads
brother. The oak’s roots

sinking deeper into the dirt.
A heart

I murdered my least defensible vices,

stacking them like bodies

in the surf.

Three guys in fluorescent vests are taking down
a tree along my neighbor’s fence line, which is, of course,

my fence line, with my two round-eyed snakes and my wandering

raccoon.