Backyard

I must be getting good at making love because my head doesn’t press up hard against the bedstead anymore.

We had two blue jays visit us this morning. We could see them through the bedroom window. Military-looking, their shoulders puffed up like a soldier’s army coat in winter and their defended heads pointing in both directions, frontward at the beak and backward at the crown.

I’m grateful for the trees in the backyard of one of our neighbours. Improper weed-like trees, excited by the wind, happy like a girl twirling a hula-hoop. They had been hammering something in behind them all summer long. I hope they won’t decide that it’s the kind of something we all need to see.

Because I like the trees. Every day I look out at them and tell Larry. I like the sky the birds fly away to, exit points from the square plots of the neighbours’ squeezing in. I know they have to be too stupid to notice; how enticing the grey sky is of fall.

Our neighbours turn their corners on the populated streets and parkways just as we do. I know they have to be too stupid so there’s a place to go to be with you alone.