It is nearly Halloween, which means
wrong sizes on Walmart racks, variety bags of
pumpkins extinguishing themselves on the stoop
children from the trailer park trawling our identical lawns soon
so we can give away nickels, light, sandpaper, raisins, cement.
But the wind comes first and takes the neighbor’s
airbrushed Honda porch couch dead flowers.
The wind comes and peels the neighbor’s shingles,
flaps the shades, bends their yard-weeds.
The wind comes and
drives the main drag restlessly
looking for
trauma and muscle cars.
The wind comes as a small sacrifice
to the gods of disconsolation.
Their innards will burn.
It is nearly Halloween and we’ve hollowed
the bent windows, smoothed over the unlit windows
but we can’t do anything about the last
of the neighbor’s cigarette. When he walks
smoke parachutes
in the space between our houses:
a tattooed Iraq war vet,
and his nightly light pollution.
We can count on the neighbor’s cigarette,
and children flock to our street, sweet things.
We don’t turn anyone away.