My neighbour’s restless.
He’s built a shed, a deck,
and now a wooden fence.
His wild saw screams.
Banging nails annoy the shrieking birds.
Our flowers bloom beside this factory.
I know the reason why.
Winter wrecked him twice:
two deaths; his son, by suicide,
and then his brother. We heard,
and wondered what grief did,
those slow, grey months that kept us all inside.
He’s making something out of this.
Leans on the fence to talk about his shed,
his metal saw. I’m with the shrieking birds,
but I admire the work we hear,
the nails he buries in new wood
between our properties.
~ from Undercurrents, New Voices in Canadian Poetry
edited by Robyn Sarah (Cormorant Books, 2011)
