God bless the neighbors

                                         whoever they are

               this was California not some suburban enclave or neighborhood in the Midwest where  mothers boast they have eyes in the backs of their heads 

                                                                                              not really   it was a bright insidious network arranged between the neighborhood mothers that the CIA or NSA would have wet themselves to have arranged   the mothers inspired eyes outdoors  fervent  hanging laundry on clotheslines with wooden pins or indoors washing dishes preparing homecooked meals and watching out through kitchen windows over their backyards and alleyways

then   the kids werent sharp  but they didnt have to be   it never occurred to them that they were being surveilled

                    

               in California   that type of collusion didnt exist

white picket fences didnt separate neighbors on flat lands that ran as far as the eye could see

where playing golf in the Midwest  from scrappy Forest Preserve hutches to the Country Club clubhouses  all eighteen pin flags could be seen

                                                                               California homes were either monoliths
nearly bumping into each other at their property lines  bathroom windows lined up across from their neighbors bathroom windows or split by wire fences and barren land that sprouted desperate weeds and wildflowers after winter rains    maybe

there was never never enough water

California has underground rivers

                                                        one learned if someone in the house wasnt on or feeling poorly

betrayed and outed by the colour of their urine  sacrosanct and still between flushes 
necessitated only by bowel movements
   

Yet

       whoever their neighbors are

God blessem

                                                                    

they wound their thirty-foot palm three Christmases ago with coloured lights  twisting the strands up its shaft   neglecting its fronded crown

and for the past three nights  incredulously  it was lighted

they slept reversed in their bed to enjoy it through their window

                                                                                                       a Christmas contrail rising in the night and bumping her black belly  knocking to have her spread her legs or roll over and take it taboo

they had no intentions of asking them why or even informing them of the lights

they felt that when graced by something   

                                                                   one should never ask why

simply thank it

and accept it

Oh   the dreams that it unraveled

 Evening,  Monday,  23  2. 15         

 1314,  Twosday,  24  2. 15