Suburbia the Beautiful

There’s nothing I
don’t know about marigolds.

 

That’s why
I can tell you

 

the tallest is nodding to the second-
in-command

 

in a small
battalion of summer.

 

That’s why
they’re paused and sympathetic

 

next to the patio lattice.
That’s why

 

you should really
fix your patio lattice.

 

The stop sign
reddens the street.

 

The raccoon
machetes the hedge.

 

And the paperboy
you forgot to pay

 

last week skirts
the sidewalk’s edge,

 

fielding a fly ball
deeper and

 

deeper in the canola fields
of his mind. Only

 

he’s never seen canola,
so that’s why

 

the fly ball never lands.
(There’s nothing

 

I don’t know
about fly balls that never

 

land.) That’s why
the sun sets

 

the way that it does
well past the gates of evening.

 

That’s why
the garage doors

 

close the way that they do,
that’s why

 

they wave slowly
goodnight,

 

that’s why
the foliage, why

 

the drawbridge,
and why

 

the quiet castle.
The pavement rivers

 

past empty
lots. The lawn

 

waters itself off to sleep.
And the soft

 

raft of the day,
it gets lost

 

in the sea
of the paperboy’s

 

fading
blue denim.