Mother Winter

The sun was relaxing into the horizon
Embers glowing behind blue-black hills
I walked through my neighborhood as the grizzled vet
of this shitty part of town
every neighbor in my building has changed at least once,
twice or three times, some of them
But the five-year and maybe-lifer me strides across the grass
freshly cut and smelling it
The heat shimmer that rose from the parking lot is long gone
and some chill is in the evening
Autumn watches us from over those hills
Gently nudging through time

Autumn watches, gliding in from the west
and her mournful aria will soon shake loose the leaves from my maples
will kill the ants that worked so hard in my yard
will give way to Mother Winter
harbinger to the high unholy queen of this land
bursting pipes and cracking concrete
with nothing behind the eyes but reality
and I walked through my neighborhood in shorts
and the whisper of that chill danced over me

The moon hung in sharp contrast, lit up against that indigo sky
I carried my quarry past four dining room chairs arrayed near a dumpster
thought about picking them up but I don’t have a place for them
Seemed pretty nice to just throw away

And a garage door was open to the evening, no car parked in it
Just a cube of white-yellow light beaming into this dimness
I walked past it and just peered to the back wall that sheltered the apartment behind it
Knowing that a lifetime happens in there
Friends and lovers and accomplishments and deaths
are all past that door, through the tunnel of pale light that I will never know
The square of light facing the street
and far past my imagination

Tomorrow morning I will smoke on my steps
I will see my across-the-street neighbor Jim
He’ll be smoking weed and sitting in a wheelchair
I might walk over and see what’s on his mind
I probably won’t