The Neighbor

“The most we can say is that

 the world is lila, God’s play”

                          —Huston Smith

The neighbor-lady’s mad.

They say her name is Lila,

but she always speaks in tongues.

Some days it’s beetles

that come flying off her tongue—

that tongue gray-green and curling

like the fiddlehead of a fern.

They put me in mind of Granny’s jewels

I pawned so long ago, them beetles,

the shine of their hard wings

so many colors in the lamplight.

They rattle loud as hail against the windowpane.

Other times she speaks nothing

but starfish and the house smells

of salt. They scuttle over the sandy floor

and under them wide blue skirts she always wears.

I don’t mind the butterflies—some purple,

and some with wings clear as glass—

but other days her tongue’s like pink elastic

and shoots out teeny frogs bright as sunrise,

only louder.               I never know

what she’ll be speaking next—

snakes or peacocks or some great beast

with tawny shoulders and a wild green eye.

It ain’t natural.          So I says to her,

I’m moving back to town—

I got to get away from the everlasting

clatter of your tongue.  She just throws

back her head and laughs

birds.

Earthspeak Magazine 9, Autumn 2011