55

I've never doubted that it's the walls
that decide I can hear car doors slamming
but not footsteps.
Getting back from the airport
and stumbling in from the bar
to a house on the street,
they sound the same to me.
They both accompany a man with blue eyes,
the one who mows his lawn on Sunday morning
keeping a complacent eye
on the skipping child on the sidewalk.
I hear him slam the door,
and I close my eyes and watch him
go into his house, and stay up for a while
to watch the cars I hear go by.