Heat’s off. Sun’s way up.
Just planted tomatoes and eggplants
are looking right
and upright, for a change.

Trash bagged and on the curb.
Recycling bins full but intact. 
Nothing got at anything left out
overnight, for a change.

Not a single dead opossum
or skunk on the road
in scent or sight, for a change.
The neighborhood can-hunters

banter pleasantly
as they divide the homes between them,
and everything gets put back 
in the right place, for a change.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary
when the ambulance arrives for
someone in the green house
across the street. But this time

someone is stretchered out — 
it’s been a while since that happened.
At least their face is showing this time,
for a change. Right up the street

await the tow trucks to move the cars
that block the path of the street sweepers
who finally have come to fulfill the prophecy
of the signs hung so long ago, no one

still believed it would happen; least of all
on a Wednesday trash day, can picking day,
garden getting started day, save the life of my child
day. All happening at once, for a change.