(neighbor)
12/10/97

My new neighobr is crazy
for vacuuming
her gray water dumping
into my yard,
unplanted lettuce
sitting on the steps.

It is hard to know
what makes me madder
heat or cold.
My personality knows
only a few good months
the temperate days
when I can sit at
my desk and work.

contentiousness is spreading
all around me
like desk paper clutter
like winter weeds
or is it summer ones.

Things simply get on
my nerves,
the cats spill their litter
then sleep through my frustration
in my favorite chair
in front of the fire,
the one which was green velvet
before they destroyed it –
and now is faded brown.

I am on the brink
of restoring it to its
former beauty
but fear the futility
of my act

and this is why I think
I argue as I do
with life

with the optimistic
young woman next door
who settles her home
quickly
with store bought shades
and drapes
while I myself
labored to shop for cloth
to cut and sew.

I have always been
this way
so life has been
hard and slow.

Perhaps I have no one
but myself to blame
for running out of time
so that I lose such patience
with the details of life
but I have always
been like this
only now more so.

Life makes sense
when I sit in front
0f the fire
with my pen,
though I am bundled
so that I can scarcely move

The cold makes
me crazy
as does the summer heat
and the piles of paper
and the spilled cat litter
and the carpet piddles
and the terrible complexity
of our world.
I think it is this
that gets me cranky.

when it seems
that all of my life
I have just
been trying
to have a cup of tea
in front of the fire
with my pen.