Three Houses

A fistfight just started
on new stained steps.

It's a nasty one, the fight,
blood on the buttons already

but the morning is early
and yet to be marred

as these two raise voices
and swing between curses

now in the flower beds
of my grandfather's second built home,

punching directive at who will
grace the neighborhood.

He sits on the steps
and wipes his glasses, pondering

trusses of the skeleton
of his third unfinished house

where he lives in a room meant for preserves
under a floor meant for carpet.

They crush the half silence
of the first Sunday of August
with their fists,

with cars slowing to watch,
and the wind shakes the daisies.

He waves from his steps
as the motorists crawl,

church bound fingers point
with mouths agape.

And the wind shakes the daisies
planted by his wife.