Spillway Review
Poetry


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The Neighbors' Weave

by C.L. Bledsoe


The vacant lot behind my house is

a carpet laid down for birds;

a green shag swaying in the slow ceiling fan breeze.

That and the blue white toothpaste clouds  

settling in the porcelain sink of the sky

remind me this is someone else's home.

 

Buildings, like furniture placed oddly

to hide stains in a rug,

almost ruin the natural feng-shui of things -

the mirrored tops of lakes are forgotten, flower

beds are placed out of sight of doorways . . .

I wonder if the birds see my neighborhood

as a series of squatter shacks.

  

I throw out bread that the birds don't eat,

and water blueberries that they do

in a plot that's mine for now,

but someone else's when the lease is up.

 

Men are pulling the carpet up in the vacant lot;

revealing a clean scrubbed floor of dirt beneath,

waiting for someone to track cement across it.