The dudes next door would cast lots against one another

They would draw straws for the bravado of my cranberry blouse

To appear on their bedroom floors

One of them sits at two in the afternoon drinking beer and

Wearing a pink bath mat as a cape

The other divots the grass with a pitching wedge

While they discuss the vegetable garden they'll plant

And the cute girls they want to nail.  Then they sit in silence

Picking among the burned items of their makeshift junkyard:

Life without distressing urgency or

The need for imperative beauty

He takes a swing at the blossoming crabapple

Flowers erupt—I feel compassion

For him, I think, and a new kind of violence