So far this summer,
the weather has been kind,
I say.
My neighbor
in shirt sleeves
says, "yup, so far"
and wags his head
toward the sky
to give credit
where no credit has been earned,
unlike his own shoveling
the snow for me for weeks
after my husband died.
Months later now, I thank him
and he won't hear of it.
He says he did not know
one word to explain,
or to console a body -
but who is really a person.
He is that kind of man.
He is John next door
and has always been
John next door,
and to him I am
who I am.
I'm sure
we'll still talk occasionally
when the leaves or snow fall once again,
both on his driveway
and mine.
©
's first full length poetry manuscript They Say This Is How Death Came into the World was published by Mayapple Press. His second book, Wires Over the Homeplace was published in 2013 by Pinyon Publishing. His poetry and flash have appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Sentence, Mid-American Review, Laurel Review, Potomac Review, Pleaides, and Bellevue Literary Review, among many other online and print publications.
Dickey teaches philosophy in Omaha, NE.
We’ve published two more poems by Dickey: “Against Pots” and “How You Prove Anything and Everything.”
