Neighbors

It’s a tantrum scream,
But it jolts anyway;
It rips through the
Backyards and lawns.

I grit my teeth.
The times have changed.
Fear and rawness shoot
Through my nostrils.

Anger I don’t understand,
Volume that is foreign,
Persistence that baffles,

This scream punctuates.

A helicopter drowns the sound
Yet not the starkness,
And I wash the dishes to reclaim
Control of my surroundings.

I remember Kelly as a baby,
Banshee of Bird Street,
In those days, from whose ears
Did Palmolive cleanse her scream?

Photo by Fredrik Öhlander