97poems/hick

The world is shrinking,
they say.
These days mine does not
extend past the house,
scarcely into the yard,
in fact.
I watch my neighbor
run up the street to the mailbox,
one could call her lithe
but I think that word is reserved
for more elegant women.
She is lean, though not firm,
tightly-wired, as I’ve heard
someone say about quick people.
I always thought of as staccato,
fast but not fluid.

I am sometimes fast,
but just as often
I move like honey.

She drives a city bus,
smokes cigarettes
and drinks caffeine,
so she is all a buzz,
even beyond her natural
tendencies.

On the perimeters
of her job she is
repairing the roof,
mowing the lawn,
putting up fences.
She is a rough woman
with a boorish, overweight man
and a loud, obnoxious dog.
A hick, someone said
and, of course, the same
could be said
of me.

1/30/97