There was a time around here
you’d be welcomed at the great house,
if you were the right sort of person,
by a slave who stabled your horse.
In the subdivisions of my childhood
black-faced lawn jockeys, cast iron
slaves to lost-cause nostalgia,
reached for phantom horses’ reins.
Now they’re gone with the horses,
replaced by these bottomless invitations
to sit down, though no one ever does,
neither the owners nor the folks next door
chilling in their conditioned air, nor I,
speed-walking through summer’s forlorn
chowder as if my life depended on it.
Take these three, for instance, arranged
as if to welcome conversation,
a mirage of highball glasses sweating rings
on the upturned palms of their raw pine arms,
but only if you agree to conditions:
no religion or politics; just report cards,
Caribbean cruises, Houston Astros stats,
or that godawful lawn down the block.
What if I call their bluff, a panting stranger
taking a load off on this curated lawn,
making talk so small only the friends
I dream of sitting beside me can hear?
Yet even that will have been too loud.
Would they sally forth into the heat
from their entertainment center,
balding husband, Louisville Slugger in hand,
and frowning wife?
“Who the hell are you?
What do you think you’re doing here?”
Aren’t we all, at heart, metaphysicians?
I’d nod at those two empty chairs.
“You better sit down for this. Where do I start?”
