A summer evening, doors ajar, I hear
some pops I barely register: the sound
of breeze in garden trees (I have four near),
but then I notice and I look around –
there’s flame that rears beyond the neighbor’s fence!
Ten seconds and I know it wasn’t lit
deliberately – it’s crime or accident –
response arrives and pros extinguish it.

When next I hear the pop and creak of trees,
my body clenches and my heartbeats pound.
The aftermath includes anxieties
surprising me. I similarly found
I flirt, but past events soon shift my whim
to tell the fellow all that’s wrong with him.