Good Fences

Ralph’s been a good neighbor
Since the day we moved in
The week he retired
He’s kept an eye on our house
And, from what we can tell, just about everyone else’s.

Ralph likes everyone except his neighbors on the other side.
And their 30-some cats that turned everyone’s yard into a litter box.
So we weren’t their biggest fans, either.
When the cats caught rabies and started biting folks,
Ralph said that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Ralph’s a local,
He knows people around here.
And he makes sure you know he knows people.
Because knowing other locals is what locals do best.
He says he knows how to call in a favor.

It’s funny how right after animal control showed up at Ralph’s neighbors’,
So too did the building inspector, about that in-ground pool filled with Mosquito larvae they’d put in without a permit.
And the planning board, about the carport and 2nd driveway along Ralph’s property line.
And the humane society, about the barking dogs they never walk.
And the sheriff, about something Ralph says he’ll explain “after it blows over.”

A conservative’s conservative and former marine,
Ralph will talk your ear off about what’s wrong with this country today.
He loves to drop names of local business owners and city employees I’ve never heard of
And somehow works into every discourse a set of circumstances
Under which he would or would not kill a man.

Ralph comes out to chat over the fence when we’re in the yard,
Updating us on the number of potentially rabid cats they’ve trapped so far.
His cop buddy says it’s 27,
But Ralph casually mentions it’s more like 29.
He says he “took care of a few of them” himself.

Ralph goes hunting in Canada with his buddies, but not for deer or caribou.
Coyotes. Lured onto a frozen lake with roadkill
Picked off with a sniper rifle at 500 feet.
Ralph reminds me he was a marine,
And explains that once you’ve shot a man, you never get that out of your system. You've got to shoot something.

He’s always offering to loan me tools.
Whatever he thinks I need, Ralph’s got one, or has a buddy who does.
Ralph boasts he was an ace helicopter mechanic in the marines.
And tells me they had him guard Nixon once.
He says he “sure wouldn’t take a bullet for that Obama.”

Ralph talks embarrassing baby talk to my daughter. (Oh, yes he does!)
And insists on snowblowing our driveway for us, despite our insistence on shoveling.
He declares he likes to take care of his own,
And reminds me that, if need be, he’ll be ready to kill for us,
‘Cause he knows 22 ways to do it,
And we’re good people.


I ask him how many tours he did in combat.
Ralph just looks at me like I haven’t been listening for the last two years.
“I was never went to combat.” he tells me,
“I fixed helicopters during the war.”
“They kept me stateside.”

Child Prodigy

All parents will say their child is a prodigy
But mine really is.
You should hear her count:
1, 2, 3, 5, 7…
No, she didn’t skip any numbers.
She just counts in prime
But gives the “1” a little too much credit.

She says “I love you, Daddy.”
When I ask her “How much?”
She sprints a tight figure-8 in reply,
Tearing infinity into the lawn.

The first clue to her talent came moments after her birth.
Just for fun, I asked her what two plus two is.
Already fluent in American Sign Language,
She told me “five,” then smiled.
I thought she was making a joke, but it was probably just gas.
This was before I knew she only counted in prime.
Turns out the math works,
For extremely large values of two.

DaVinci wrote backwards and was considered a genius.
Our child speed-reads cookbooks upside down
And writes notes with no repeating symbols
In a secret code that brings CIA cryptographers to tears
In crayon.

She gets both more adorable and naughty exponentially by the hour.
Like blooming fractals, patterns of each behavior more erratic each day.
Implementing a cost-benefit analysis of deeds
That would baffle Alan Greenspan.
She insists there’s a method to her madness.

She’s invented her own language,
Like twin-speak for an only child.
Wishing her parents could understand her ululations,
She throws yogurt at the diplomas on the office wall.
We know they embarrass her.
They’re only master’s degrees.

We’re afraid she’ll be lonely without peers.
We’ve tried play dates with the neighbors’ kids
But we feel bad when our daughter shows their child up.
The Hawkings next door say their son Stephen won’t be coming over again.
Made up some excuse about preparing for lectures in theoretical physics.
I know he retired last year.
Did they really think she wouldn’t put 2 and 2 together?
That’s the first thing she did when she was born.

On Squirrels and their Deathwishes

On Squirrels and their Deathwishes

Much ado has been made about the foolhardy lemmings,
Rumored to hurl themselves to their death from the cliff top in droves.
They say this is a myth,
And who’s to argue?

Meanwhile, it is their cousins the squirrels for whom suicidality is most easily documented.
In Tulsa, a squirrel was reported to have taught itself to not only use crosswalks but to wait for the walk signal to change.
I’ve seen squirrels cross the road in traffic, and frankly
I smell a rat.

Studies show Squirrels learn to steal more effectively by observing others and can spot the best thieves among their fellows.
They have even been observed pretending to bury imaginary nuts as a ruse to deter potential bandits, demonstrating extraordinary intelligence for a rodent.
So why can’t they just cross the street in a straight line?

This business of leaping from tree to tree when they lack opposable thumbs has me worried.
Where are their parents in the midst of these risky behaviors?
Such species-wide disregard for their own wellbeing does not bode well for their evolutionary longevity.

I think they just like to mess with us,
Perched by the road side ‘til they can almost smell your pine tree air freshener,
Then they LEAP,
Zig-zagging back and forth
So you don’t even know which way to swerve.
And you know, don’t you, what that chittering noise they make is all about…
They can’t stop laughing at what we call “squirrel-proof” bird feeders,
Outwitting our meager contraptions like a 12-year-old with a child-proof medicine cap.

Squirrels mask their scent from predators by rubbing their fur with shed snakeskin,
Their group behaviors have been used as a model for designing resource allocation efficiency of computing systems,
In 2007 fourteen of the creatures were arrested in Iran, accused of being western spies.
Spying for our country, but unable to cross the street without becoming tail amputees.
Granted, the squirrel spies didn’t assemble the GPS devices and surveillance gear tucked away in their little backpacks.
Given their intelligence, on paper, it’s brilliant.
But the CIA spook whose clever idea it was
Has clearly never driven down a country road in New Hampshire
Or seen the irony in a bushy-tailed roadkill smear.
Of course, they were caught immediately,
Unable to remain inconspicuous long enough to avoid detection by border guards.
After all, they were squirrels wearing backpacks.
Not something you see everyday.
They waited, motionless, at roadside for a convoy to come closer, and closer, then leapt.
There were originally fifteen.
Halfway across the road, one stopped at the sight of a nearby minaret
With a top like a giant acorn.
Wondering, for only a moment, where squirrels go when they die.

Leaving Good Friends

I let you go like smoke
Because exhaust is not for savoring.
We tried,
But the soot built up in our lungs.
We had to exhale sometime.

Letting go just to grasp again,
Desperate in the interim,
We have more breaths to breathe.
I have more hours to burn.
We exchange knowing glances.

Hey,
You got a light?

One Match

I tell her she’s cheating
Looking down my nose as she stuffs wads of paper under green kindling.
If you do it right,
You should be able to start it with one match.
Even if the wood is damp.

You always start with birch bark
White birch.
It’s nature’s paper.
Thin, oily, and flammable.
Above it, a tangle of the thinnest dry twigs.
Dead pine branches do nicely.
You’ve got to have something for that birch bark to ignite.
You’ve only got a few seconds to catch it
Before it burns out.
You should only need to use one match.

She thinks I’m being ridiculous.
We have no birch trees on our quarter acre,
And the fire pit is 20 feet from the house.
I tell her it’s not the practicality of the matter.
It’s the principle.

Around the twigs, a structure of sticks
And logs.
You can go with the triangular base tee-pee
But I prefer a four-sided log cabin.
You just have to leave room for the air to flow in on the bottom
And a hole to reach in with the match.
The flame starts small
Until you blow from the bottom.
Just don’t blow it out.
With the twigs now roaring,
The dome of sticks above them follow suit.
Then the big stuff.
Now you’ve got a camp fire.
Keep feeding it.
Don’t worry about the marshmallows ‘til you’re almost done.

Her sticks are thrown in haphazardly on the paper.
It sickens me to watch.
She reaches in with a butane lighter.
Huge flames in seconds.
No matches.
I tell her she’s cheating.
We always lit ours with one match,
No paper.
And when that didn’t work,
We lit it with two matches.
And one can of bug spray.

Impromptu Ode to Cardigan Sweaters

Two decades wearing cardigans,
and I have never once believed them to be fashionable.
Not only because no trend lasts that long,
but because fashion and I are like oil and... dark matter:
If there is a relationship, nobody quite gets it yet.
Who needs them to be fashionable,
as long at they're thick enough
and have good pockets?
They will keep the chill off,
veil the inevitable plumber's crack
and button up in moments to conceal spots of wayward ketchup.

Practical for New England weather,
my cardigans are as much my uniform
as flannel on a lumberjack
or sun hats on elderly nudists.
The pockets ensure I've always got a place to put my hands
in awkward social settings
so I don't fidget while avoiding eye contact.
The fact that I'm wearing a cardigan labels me as an introvert
Like a press pass for wallflowers.
Everyone knows I'm supposed to be there
but they only have talk to me if they feel like it.

Perfect for all seasons,
I leave them open in warm weather
and buttoned when it's cool.
I never worry about static hair
pulling them off over my head.
They're better than a jacket,
despite the similarities.
When it's cold, you can throw a coat on top of a sweater
and not look completely stupid.

Labeling me as sensitive and sedentary,
my mid-life security blankets are worn.
My isolation in their embrace,
they embolden me to be a little more of who I'm not,
and on occasion,
to like it.

Stories to tell

Grammy Ida still sends me valentine cards.
In her 80s, she still volunteers at the nursing home.
She says somebody’s got to help out the “old people.”
She’d never touch a drink and thinks gambling is a sin,
But when she wins money at bingo she doesn’t feel guilty.
Grammy Ida has a jolly laugh and cries whenever we tell her goodbye.

Grammy Ida told me the first racist joke I ever heard
And what a “Puerto Rican” was.
They were the people who came in and ruined Reading, Pennsylvania.
She sent me $25 for my birthday this year
And made woven refrigerator magnets with plastic and yarn
For her great granddaughter.
Grammy Ida eats half the cookies she bakes for the nursing home.

Grammy Ida has nothing but praise for her oldest grandson
And criticism for my younger cousins.
She speaks in the wacky non-sequiturs of aging
And doesn’t know it.
She was a troublemaker in her day.
She never used to tell us anything about her life,
But old age has loosened her tongue.
Grammy Ida has stories to tell.

The Herald

First brave crocus of the year,
Pressing up through remnants of a snow bank in late March,
A month of frost yet to come.
I wish him well,
Though I have half a mind to scold him.
Kids, these days.