The Previous Owner

The previous owner,

Was a seedy punch-face man

Pudgy and pink

And I disliked him

He was belligerent and sly

Looking for a score

An advantage

I watched his pudgy little boy

Look over the edge of the cut and fill,

That held my house like a hand,

And ask me if he could come down.

I invited him to dinner once or twice

He looked up at my three sons

And wanted to join the family.

I disliked the fellow,

The previous owner,

But, if nothing else, he appreciated distance

And privacy.

He stayed back on his little plot of ground

And he left the thick hedgerow of trees

So that I wouldn’t see him

Nor he me.

We needed no fences

For neither of us looked

Nor wanted to see

Or to be seen.

Before the previous owner moved away

He came to our front door

With his wife and son

And invited himself in.

We spent the only half an hour,

Together in a room,

The only half hour in all those years.

He wished me well

While his son waved goodbye

I stood there baffled waving too.

When you moved in

You built a fence—an ugly fence—

Of pipe and wire and paint.

You took down enough of the trees

So that I had to see

Your chicken coop-like playhouse

Your broken power pole

Secured with yellow

Polypropylene rope

Tied to a tree

That belonged to me

Your perpetual

Driveway development

Moved ever closer towards

The property line

And when you realized that I could not help but see

You built an even uglier fence

And painted it

So that it would stand out

In my face

Leaning like the electric pole

On your piles and scars on the hillside,

Like a cleft palate

Or a harelip.

The previous owner

Might have known me

And me, he…

But you, my friend?

That could never be.