Small Yellow House
I look out the window at the tree
in the back yard next door
just behind a small yellow house.
Its crown is still green, but I
know leaves will fall.
A dump truck
with a flashing yellow strobe
crawls along the side street
as a city worker looks
for cracks in the asphalt.
And the neighbor’s pickup
has been gone since last week.
He said in passing one day
he didn’t know if his lease
would be renewed.
I figure that’s the way it is—
people move into the house
and are gone before I have
the chance to know them
as they grow into their lives.
And the city—
it is living and dying
even now, forty years after
the tractor factory closed.
Locals in the neighborhood
bar downtown still gather
watch football or baseball
and commiserate—
but even someone new
is greeted as a friend.
And I’m back in town
to stay after four years
of working with construction
crews in five different states.
Two darkened windows
of the quiet house gaze
across the front yard, ghosting
the lives of those who have
come and gone.
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