What Is Left Over

The only road
I will travel from here
runs due north from my door. 

One day after I leave I take 
a left turn and drive into my hometown 
with all the small houses
clustered along one street 
that runs from the North Road west.
At the end it goes into the river
like a boat landing,
though no one here has boats
and no one swims in the River.

My house here has three stories,
a small front yard, a huge backyard.
I call the front yard “the grounds”
and the back yard “the estate.”
I call the first story of the house
“The Factory.”  The second is
“Dramatic Sex.”  The third,
“What Is Left Over.”  It’s a pretty
house, uncluttered outside and in. 
I’m an uncluttered, pretty man in this house
where I spend my days between
the Factory and Dramatic Sex
and fall sound asleep every night
in What Is Left Over.  What goes on 
in everyone else’s house, I neither know
nor want to know.   

Full moonrise over my town
is a party and a half for everyone.
We watch the River silvering, the fish
striking out beyond the reach
of anyone’s best cast.
Everyone’s out of their houses talking
and laughing, the way we didn’t
when we lived south of here
in the tangle of other people.  
We are small enough
that everyone knows each other by face
and large enough that names are a bother,
so we laugh and talk and go
in and out of our homes without them.
It’s better that way.  I couldn’t even tell you
the name of the town,
not that I would. If you’re meant to find it,
you will.