A mute yellow sign stands near the street
in a neighbor’s yard signaling SLOW
in black letters. You sip coffee
from a blue cup as friends drive by and wave
on their way to work, the grocery
or anywhere, but here. The old couple
with a corgi, call good morning from the park.
With only his eyes uncovered, a friend from
two blocks over on a silver and blue moped,
waves; you smile and wave back. Across the street,
a cardinal repeats a two tone call four times,
another cardinal replies two doors down
with the same two tone call three times,
back and forth, back and forth. You imagine
maybe one is a mockingbird mocking and
the cardinal knows, but just wants to talk or
maybe, both are mockingbirds practicing mocking or
maybe two cardinals, one across the street, the other
two doors down perched at a safe distance
keeping each other company. Up the street,
a black dog barks behind a chain link fence at
three squirrels raiding a birdfeeder. The tom
with a black coat, white boots and no collar
sits thirty feet away smirking that he defecated
in your pansies by the front door, again
and there is nothing you can do to stop him.
You fantasize about fostering a litter of foxes or coyotes
under the azalea bush by your front porch and smile back.
A few leaves have fallen in the yard; you resolve
to rake them in a pile by the street for the city
to have something to do on Thursday. The corgi
has taken its humans home; the cardinals
have gone silent; the squirrels
went elsewhere to shop for food; the tom
has gone to hunt songbirds in the woods; the mute yellow sign
still stands near the street in a neighbor’s yard
signaling SLOW in black letters and you
obey, because it gives you something to do.
12-11-20
My husband's poetry 
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