I will be pleased said the neighbor to the stranger
On whatever path you park it on
Beside the gabled convent where the kids
Were taught their lessons or pretended to be
Behind the bike shop refuge of competitors laggards and go-getters
Small business but not enslaved by supply and demand
Or before the ancient tavern where the motorcycles filed
Pabst Blue Ribbon pickled eggs a jukebox pinball and darts
Or the more ancient cemetery haunt of lovers and bereaved
Or down this very cul-de-sac where all is second nature
No secrets among the settled the restless and the calm
The neighbor thinks all this but says aloud about a third of it
And not in so many words
They call her the Mayor of Lighthouse Cove Lane
That once was fresh and new
Not a lane it contains no cove no lighthouse
No more mayor than dowager duchess
It does have a vaguely trapezoidal boxlike sign

Weird passages out at the main drag
The camera that reads the license plates
The modern temptation flattery in the information age
But the asphalt keeps crumbling
Something there is that doesn’t love a street
Like ticking of an entropic catalog
Green plants push up amid the concrete
At the razed and fenced-in Qwik-e-Mart
A few dissenting voices are raised
As the streetlights flicker to life
The critiques of the crickets the peepers the katydids
The low harumph of the transformer
A firefly just one makes its halfhearted signal
You should develop your observational powers
Learn to interpret the katydid’s ka-zicca-zeir
The tractor-trailer’s frurr
The whippoorwill’s mewl
There is no whippoorwill its cry a lost cause
A classical sunset just a memory
No moon on this side of the calendar
The spongy weather feels different somehow
People make an effort to be nice
It’s weird that they make an effort

Is some upheaval about to erupt
Not an occasion for anxiety or even mild unease one supposes
The guest advises rolling with the punches
But no punches have been thrown
On the contrary all anybody has heard are tranquil murmurs
Zazzing interjections from the fauna
But maybe you’re not paying attention
Maybe you’re just lulled into listlessness
By the close resemblance of Hyundais Fords and Chrysler products
Crossovers from where to where
There is no gabled convent never was
There’s a church with its parochial school out on the street
The nuns live on the premises or maybe there are no nuns
You used to see them in the department store and at the baseball game
It used to be just a street but now it’s a main thoroughfare
With periodic traffic lights and four lanes
Five if you count the turn lane
Most of the countenances are turning inward anyway
As the dusk sidles toward the intersection