Postmortem
Neighbor, when you were around,
you complained so much about
my pears falling on your grass
and my leaves blowing across
your drive and my acorns rol-
ling into your garage that
I let everything go on
my side of your property
since I did not want to mow
much less blow at your command.
Neighbor, now that you have passed,
I find myself raking and
weeding and trimming along
my side of your property
and even getting my mail
from the curb without parting
drapery or shrubbery
to see if you have gone to
get your own and raised again
the red flag on the black box.