Tonight's Poet Corner: Hello, Beautiful Neighbor
Hello, Beautiful Neighbor by Belinda Roddie Outside, I am lost. The fog is a returning guest as I creep across the pavement. My eyes adjust to the grays, and I see my neighborhood unfolding like a pop-up book in my lap. In front of the nearest house to my left, a beautiful young man in a green jacket and brown trousers rummages for a door key that he does not have; it is still resting on his brother's coffee table, where the beer cans pile up like the pyramids of Giza within a stained wooden desert. I stop only to wave at the old woman with red still in her hair. Widowed at fifty-two, she keeps a photograph of her wife tucked in the abyss between her breasts. Three times this week, I've now strolled through here to sit atop a golden hill. From there, the view of a city I do not belong to is dulled by sparse sunlight. The traffic hums like silver insects in an unending stream. The noise, from the crest, sounds like laughter. When was the last