Walking Back

I have no business here, a bearded stranger

circling the block, beginning to draw looks

from the man pruning his forsythia, the housewife

who calls the children in from jumprope. Dutch elm

disease has thinned the landscape, let afternoon

sunlight glare off grass and sidewalks. Everything

looks too new. Our house is green now, with patio

and lawn where tufts of rye grass used to stall

our mower till my father called it quits and took

to working weekends at the office. Even

our frontyard maple's forgotten my mark beneath

thirty-five new rings. Up the street,

Skrija's grocery store has lost its musty heart

of oak and penny candy. A neon sign

announces "Guns and Ammo" above barred

windows and a yellow metal door. Still,

there's the bump at Sixtieth and Grove-ready as ever

for the next no-hander showing off for his idea

of the girl who'd like his looks-and the blue jays

and the locusts and the tack of ripe asphalt.

Like those who stare, I wonder what I want,

whether I'm dangerous or simply need directions.

Today, hundreds, maybe thousands of us search

the old neighborhoods for clues: initials in a sidewalk,

a rusty nail pounded in a tree, a wish still floating

near the school, where a small ghost, waiting on the last

bell, rubs the shiny nickle in his pocket.