Daysound [ Frederick Pollack ]

A fence, a hedge and
the angle of his house
prevent us from knowing
what that neighbor (who
will never be known or asked)
has been paying for all summer
and into the fall:

 shrieking sawing of concrete,
largesse of water through
one hose, compressed air through another,
irregular digging,
scraping; we never see workmen,
do the shovels support themselves in
mid-air? Is it like

our postwar childhoods, when
the middle class was being
constructed, not repaired or torn down?
Back then we
listened to such noise
all summer long, but ignored it because
it wasn’t about us.

Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and THE LIBERATOR (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024). Many other poems in print and online journals. Website: www.frederickpollack.com.