A New Poem

I wrote this about walking around in Jeannine and Sean Chappelle's (Alex's parents) backyard. All the stuff that had packed Alex's trailer (he lived in a trailer in their backyard while his mother was battling cancer)is sitting on the gravel under a tarp and pipe tent. His motorcycle leans on its kickstand in the center of the yard.

It is as of yet untitled:


Spiderwebs arrived quickly,
stitching the weathered canvas cover
to his motorcycle tire.

The machine leans in the center of the yard, waiting
at the head of gradually disappearing ruts.
The tall grass weaves among the spokes,
weeds ground into graying treads.

The grass edges a wide dirt patch,
the shadow of his trailer, recently removed.

His belongings sit in a makeshift enclosure,
the tarp sags, revealing its pipe framework.
Sunlight slips in at bare corners like a pin between the thumb and nail.

Water drips on milk crates and boxes.
The swollen wood of his dresser drawers cradling
dust-powdered circuit boards,
jars of orphaned ball bearings.

Assembled on the gravel is a small history,
an archive, begun and ended.

I walk among it expecting it to breathe.
It does not. It sits.
Resting, ready.

Unfamiliar odds and ends turn memories,
insightful and expected. So like him.
So like the time we.
So like I imagined he was.

"It's junk you know." I tell myself.
"He's dead you know." I answer.

Spiderwebs arrive quickly;
even in a day they stitch together
objects at rest.