The Northerners
We moved into new houses every two years it seemed,
shedding our old lives like dry epidermis -
the unmissed skin on the undercurrent of elbows and feet.
Each home presented a new upgrade,
a new, open floor plan. We woke up early those first mornings
with loud yawns, a stretch, a kiss, almost contentment.
Even our neighbors were shiny and new, at first,
and at first we were opened -
taking them up on their generous invitations
of summer-fun BBQs and southern fish fries -
you in the center of hunters, fishermen,
men who liked to work with their hands,
a man's man, the kind of man my father
had respected and took at his word. How uncomfortable
you looked standing there, blankly, holding onto a cold
Sam Adams , bobbing your head in agreement on the
art of deer hunting, knowing how your dear wife
loved animals, how I always covered my eyes when
we drove by the broken bent necks of white tails,
their carcasses strewn out on the side of roads.
You watched me from across the deck too,
sitting there uncomfortable at a table with
neighborhood women, dressed in black-knit jersey,
wearing my favorite, chunky necklace
cut from mineral and earth. You couldn't help
notice the differences in how women dressed -
They in their pink and butter yellow polo's
and white, shroud Capri's,
how they reflected the glint of afternoon sun.
You couldn't understand why every sentence
started and ended with "Honey",
like Honey, I'll get that,
or You don't want to do that, Honey.
It was too intimate for Northerners.
The itch to move came back again,
and we begun going on long Sunday drives
scouting out untouched land,
where our idiosyncrasies
would be less noticeable to neighbors.
