for Sibyl



I read some

where about a

and how it

but now I

can’t recall any

thing save

for the fact

of the reading

my mother is

on the phone

now asking a

bout and some

thing about

the neighbor’s

blue house

and the woman

and the woman’s

son who he’s

been letting

stay with him

from the church

I think she

says but I

can’t be sure

the other

neighbor next

to the blue

house not a

cross from it

like my mother

is fed up

with the noise

and the mess

and my mother

is fed up with

the blue but

what can one

do about a

color one

didn’t choose

and has no

say in doing a

way with I

can’t see the

house no matter

how hard I

try neither the

color nor the

shape of it was

there when I

was young

though it wasn’t

blue then

the man who

lived there

died for a

long time he

had dementia and

would be on

the street un

sure of where

he lived or

who he was

and an

other older

woman named

from further up

the block would

spend all day

on her porch

and come down

to guide him

home or we

helped out not

him but her I

don’t know any

thing about the

man who lives

there now except

that his name

is and when she

says it I see

horses and snow            this

morning I tried

to erase a poem

into existence

and all I man

aged was the

line I lie

to every

one with the

improvised coarse

ness of a

scorpion