- Keith Banner
You Just Can't
what if everything
you know and love
is locked up
in an abandoned house?
and you have the
key
but don't know the location
of the house,
so you spend your days
walking around neighborhoods
looking for the house.
you know what the house
looks like,
giant and abandoned,
half-brick, half-vinyl-siding
some of the siding
ripped off
and showing dark brown flashing
and the lawn overgrown
and the sidewalk
covered in sad chalk drawings
and 2 little kids in the front
of the place
telling you they are
feeding a spider.
it's not their house.
it's not yours.
but everything inside
that goddamn
house
is what you know
and love.
you can't leave it alone.
you
just
can't.
neighborhood after neighborhood
gripping the little key
until it sinks into your palm
you get thirsty enough
to ask an old guy
watering his lawn
if you might
take a swallow or two
from the garden hose
he's holding
and he gives you the hose
and you drink the cold bitter
water,
the old man asking you
where you're from
what you're doing
in this
neck of the woods
