Something Else

[Wildcard]

Hi Geoff,
   In the short time I've been exposed to your poetry you have brought a very nice range of work to the table. It is obvious that you have a very prolific pen, sir. This makes me think of my great grandmother, who saw the world from her living room window and FOX 6 News - anything else she was oblivious to. (She actually had an autographed picture of the news team in a frame on the coffee table) Rednecks are weird

Adrian came.
-turn on the news
he says.

a grocery store burns in our living room.
firefighters pour onto the corner
of Locust and Twenty -'Twenty years ago' works so well when enjambed this way.
years ago.

missing jump-ropes,
the Rottweiler’s that used to give chase,
the neighbors who moved after coming home
to an emptied house one night,

they step over
brown bottles covering sewer grates
to reach the hydrant.

he says- I hit a baseball
right through that window.

a woman is pointing to the left from her doorway

and there -I say-
your brother lost his tooth on the curb.

the store reappears as the eye
follows vines of smoke
climbing the sky.

-well, I guess we have
something else to forget now

I say nothing,
fallen into a flash of a counter
with a register, a bag of penny candy
dropped into my hand.

seeing a suit behind a desk,
the television falls asleep again,
a curtain pulled like a plug. --I smile with jealousy every time I read this line

somehow, we both know
this is how it starts,
the carving of our block into
just another street in a forest,
until, slowly,
we are left with
a name without a face

and I have to admit we have
something else to forget now.

I'm sorry I can't be more critical, but I love this. The only thing (and I'm not sure of this) is the use of hyphenation. It seemed a little erratic (sometimes-close, sometimes- early, sometimes -late) Thanks for sharing.