I am out there with the two old men sitting
…….on adjacent balconies the first warm day
Of May, unblinking as iguanas, glaring hatred
…….at each other while they sip their bitter coffee
And argue politics. In the lottery of assisted living
…….they have ended up widowered, solitary neighbors
Who lived on the same street growing up and despised
…….each other on sight as toddlers. In those days
There were tanagers in the pyracantha, frankincense
…….on the sirocco, an actual sun in the sky.
Then deaths, deaths, and sicknesses—and still
…….the rage persists in the partisanship
Of the chromosomes, the ancient, pointless argument.