"Dear Neighbor" by Michelle Bonczek Evory

[audio mp3="http://barnstormjournal.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Dear-Neighbor.mp3"][/audio]Thank you for the apples you gave us in January,the ones you brought from the food bank whereyou also traded your yellow slip of paperfor pounds and pounds of potatoesand onions to last the winter.My husband and I watched the moon bloom twicewhile still able to pick apples from the sack in our cellar.You've shown us pictures from your trip to New Yorkwhen you were a child in bellbottoms.Told how the pirouetting ballerinas you sawmade you feel like youcould do anything with your life.Last week I took the last appleand placed it in a fruit bowl to welcomethe spring sun beginning to slip morninglight through our blinds.The whole house smells like apples.Once, someone stole through my window at night, handslifted my purse and my husband's walletfrom our bedroom while we slept.Someone stole your car and left nothingbut glass and ash in the driveway.The same feet that crushed the hooded irisesin front of your window, buried my lilies,broke the necks of those beautiful flowers.I'm sorry our bumper stickers criticizeyour place of employment and doubt your religion.What do you tell your son when our headboard smacksagainst your den's wall? When our angry voicessit down beside you and your children at dinner?You've looked after our cat and plants so many timeswhile we wandered the state, campedthe Oregon coast, hiked the Trinity-Alps wilderness.We've flown to and from New York to visit our familiesmore times than we've invited you over to our house,this house, the one that smells like apples.Michelle Bonczek Evory is the author of The Art of the Nipple (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2013) and a founding editor of The Poets Billow (www.thepoetsbillow.org). Her poems have been published in over sixty journals and magazines, including Crazyhorse, cream city review, Green Mountains Review, Margie, and Orion Magazine, and have received numerous awards. She holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University, and a PhD from Western Michigan University, and currently teaches writing in Syracuse, NY.