Hawthorne

COMING OF AGE

Now even your absence comes of age 
–Lucille Clifton

evening already lowering
itself behind the cross-hatched boards of the fence,
camelias stippling the pebbled yard—bright clumps 
of pink pressed between piles 
of dog shit—& the voices of our neighbors alternating 
between fighting & fucking
carry: my own pendulum
swings: gratitude/envy—I aim for part-time
happiness—the sun’s slippage—no one 
on this street gets it all 
to themselves—my slice of it slanting
through slats in a fence I am not responsible
for erecting. my choice comes down
to whether to leave parted
the curtains, the window jutting open to deep
evening sounds of dog bark & mellow:
someone’s getting some-
one else a drink at the bar across the street. 
it’s not like I’ve never been hammered, throat
coated with want, not like 
there was no time to choose
the myriad components that would make up
this life I now let myself go 
into with the gentle hack of the fly-
swatter in summer, slack to the fuzzing
sound of the fan, the mesmerizing
motion of the paper lantern swinging
in the corner unlit. room darkens. blue
breeze, shifting
curtains, a hard laugh from somewhere unreachable-
close. I myself blue, the body’s whisper:
must we outgrow everything?