Failure to Appear

Neighbors, evicted, spin the bald tires of a pickup in the yard-mud, iffy load lidded with a futon. Then they’re gone, the lawn a not-lawn now and a box like a tiny hotel safe hangs from the doorknob.

No one recalls being born or seems to long for what it was before memory finally gained purchase on the slick surface of a lot leased us by an agency too distant to drop a check, too anonymous to hold in a single idea. This is clear