Between Neighbors

By David Wagoner b. 1926 David Wagoner

The complainant is a big man

in his own goddamn front yard

in a wheelchair, his voice as high

and highly offended (but only half

as loud) as the dogs barking

on his porch. His goddamn neighbors

(a young male couple

standing their own ground

deadpanned, on the other side

of the chain-link fence) went and aimed

their hose at his expensive bird

and hosed it. It was innocently

catching a little healthy goddamn sun

in its cage. The cop bends close

to listen. Then he walks off

to consult the complainees

who say the barking, the barking goes

on and on till they can't, just can't

stand it. If they pass on the sidewalk,

the dogs bark. If they decide to swing

on their porch swing, the dogs

bark, so, yes, they hosed his parrot

and would do it again. The big man says

between barks he needs, listen, he needs

the dogs as a signal to tell him

strangers are nearby. The cop explains

loudly the definition of nuisance,

issues a warning, turns his palms

like a double stop sign up and against

the opposing sides, then demonstrates

keeping the peace by bending

forward and saying, “Polly,

want a cracker?” and offering

through the cage bars, one healing finger,

and the wet-backed, green-backed,

red-white-and-blue para-

military macaw gives a counterdemonstration

to all of them of what can happen

if you give somebody, anybody, a finger.

From A Map of the Night. Copyright 2008 by David Wagoner. Used with permission of the author and the University of Illinois Press.

Source: A Map of the Night (University of Illinois Press, 2008)

Biography

David Wagoner is recognized as the leading poet of the Pacific Northwest, often compared to his early mentor Theodore Roethke, and highly praised for his skillful, insightful and serious body of work. He has won numerous prestigious literary awards including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Award. The author of ten . . .

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