Shutters

"I walk this way most every day," he said;
"I've seen you working on your shutters." Redwings

were calling along the breeze, pine shadows rode
new grass. I turned to him; it was the neighbor.

He said, "if I'm disturbing you—." I showed
my palm and what might pass with him for stigma

from the screwdriver when I drove in the screws;
showed how I pinioned gudgeons to the jambs

and pintles to the shutters that the owner
of this house before me had removed, green panels,

louvers painted shut with coats unnumbered,
unnumbered years. "You're new in town; if you

don't have a church," he said, "why not"—and he
raised his boot to the stoop—"consider mine?"

He leaned there, bent on me. I went on kneeling,
studying my hand. The welt on the palm would redden,

darken to bruise. Already a stain was spreading
over life line and heart line. I heard the song

of Kohler's pond downhill: a redwing sang,
but not of our imaginings. He called

to his mate in rushes where the scum bloomed green;
mosquitoes hung there, too young to range beyond

the bullfrog's head agog. My neighbor took
advantage of the quiet. "You putting them up

to keep the sun out," he wanted to know, "or keep
what happens inside happening inside?" That

was no friendly thing to say, I thought and looked
at him as if I had not understood.

The scent of lilacs building into purple,
pausing to mix with whiffs of chalking paint,

hung at the porch side. He chuckled then, as if
to share a confidence. "My church," he said

standing to go, "is around the corner." When
the shutters were hung in their old places, I knew

the wind would blow them shut and open, back
and forth, for I had no shutter dogs. Come storms

they'd bang on clapboards, hard hands of my house
would clap and join the west wind charging around

the corners. I told him I caught his hint—hearing
my shutters clapping, echoing up the sky,

applause to all the region of my house.