There is something that bothers my neighbor That irritates her, makes her skin: jump, crewel That creates a humming stammer in her voice And even makes gaps, silent ones as she talks To my wife, about the heap across the street. Her kind of row is another thing indeed Where she doesn't let one idea, spin Not even one iota of that fall Lest she lose her focus once and for all. We are talking about last week's branches, And what's hiding under that heap I see. To please my neighbor, the branches I mean, I'd have to get rid of the pile of rubbish The one, everyone tosses garbage underneath That lays so crude across the street, in the park. But if one looks around we find much more: My wife let my neighbor know this, that day By day, her dogs piss and shit on our lawn, Even on the light pole, and into the heap— The one she keeps talking about: an eye on. She watches them all right, when you are looking. To each this burden now has fallen, the branches: We have to use nice words to keep the balance: "The neighbor up the block has a junk car,” my Wife complains to her, she has no more to say. Oh, just another kind of neighborly game, One to each his own, it adds

up to little more: She is all heap and we are all branches. She will never understand my branches, Nor I, her focus on the heap—that We alone are responsible for its parting. If I could put an idea in her head "Should we not all work together to rid Our neighborhood of branches, messy dogs Loafing cars: making for good neighbors?” Before I hired the branch cuter, I asked him: "Please take the branches with you, when done!” He also is a neighbor who lives nearby. Something irritates my neighbor about us— My wife and I, whom she gives offence to; She moves with slyness it seems to me, Not of concern over those dry old branches. I'm sure she likes having thought she done well For the Neighborhood: firmly defending her heap.

*#1314 (From a morning dream came Branches 4/14/06)) Written in Lima, Peru))

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