Knee-High Weeds

Doesn’t care

If her garden

Has knee-high weeds

So that must means

That her boy

Came home

Wasn’t sure

Wasn’t sure because the mailman

The mailman would step back

In front of her house

With nothing to give

And she’d be behind blinds

Waiting to see

Who’s coming up

Who’s coming up

Who’s coming up the stairs today

Never left

Never went out

No idea how she got food

How she ate

I went by

With blueberry pie

And tried to pry her out

But she wouldn’t answer the door

And the bell was disconnected

I called out to her

Telling her about

The knee-high weeds

But nothing doing

Wind went through my hair

And that’s how I knew

It was time to move on

To the next house

With no lights on

And see about the girl in there

I go from house to house

And see which lawn

Isn’t being tended to

If the lawn’s gone

The person inside

Usually is too

I put up a sign on the lawn

That says—

‘Move Along’

Because people love

To stop and stare

And give out business

That’s not theirs

I’d rather offer a hand

But I can’t mow a lawn

Because of my allergies

So instead I just knock on the door

And wait

But nobody ever comes out

Can’t say I blame them these days

With all the crazies running around

But it feels good to try

And no point sitting at home

Watching the news

Shaking your head at things

You can go out and change

Or try to change

Or try to

To, uh

Well

I go walking up and down the street

Looking in windows

Peeking in mailboxes

Trying to see if there are signs of life

Or if it’s just an empty house

Somebody forgot to put a ‘For Sale’ sign

In front of

I cover about six blocks a day

On a good day

Before the rain starts

And then you gotta take cover

Because that stuff’ll melt the face

Right off you

Always nice though

When you see lights on

In a house

That used to be dark

Walked by her house

And I could hear her laughing

And I saw the car parked out front

So I knew that her guy was back

Probably hugging her

Loving up on her

Making her happy again

That’s not how it works out

For most of them

So when it does go that way

It’s nice

I went up to the front door

And knocked

So I could say how happy I was

For them

Even though I don’t know them

But nobody answered the door

And I thought I even heard someone say

To get the hell away or something

But that’s okay

They’re probably busy

With their celebrating

Can’t be mad about that

All kinds of things

To be mad about in the world

So why be mad

About that

They’ll have their little party

And I’ll catch them

Some other time

And maybe between now and then

They’ll get a chance

To mow their lawn