There’s a woman next door scolding her dog

and some guy in his front yard smoking a cigarette

and an old man across the street mowing the lawn

and there are hundreds of cars passing by.

We share the common ground of our front yards,

fried and dried from too much sun - the sunshine state where

neighbors wear shorts in the middle of January

and sweat mowing their lawns

We share a common ground but there are fences

and front doors and beyond those places we lead

lives of yelling of grieving of dying of loving

and

We can’t show our faces, the backs of our doors

because they aren’t clean and we need time to clean for company

and

our lawns our nice but our homes are dirty, filthy, unsightly -

so we keep our doors locked.