Neighbors

 

When we were six and a half,

We played five-stones on the steps

Of our street,

And rode our bicycles down the hill.

You sat behind me in first grade.

We walked home together each day,

Your front door facing mine,

And we parted opposite your house.

 

When we were twelve and a half,

We counted the weeks

Between your bar mitzvah and mine.

We ran to the park and flew our kites

That soared like swallows across the cloudless sky.

We walked home together each day,

Your front door facing mine,

And we parted opposite your house.

 

I sat next to you in ninth grade.

We threw our basketball

Through the ring in the school yard

And vied for first moustache hairs.

We walked home together each day

Your front door facing mine

And we parted opposite your house.

 

When we were eighteen,

We were drafted to the Army,

And inched on our stomachs through ditches.

When we had leave,

We went home together,

M16s over our shoulders,

Your front door facing mine,

And we parted opposite your house.

 

Now we are twenty.

Now both officers,

We travel to Poland with our unit

And visit the Lodz Ghetto.

We find our grandfathers’ homes,

Their doors facing each other.

Did they, too, walk home together each day

And did they part opposite your grandfather’s house?

 

 

This poem first appeared in Poetica, November 2008

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