Allandale, Linked

Amy L. Greenspan

September 14, 2022

We arrived in the 80s when, like our house,

we were barely 30 years old. Avocado 

and gold shag covered the floors. The oven, 

one bathroom were pink. The den’s linoleum 

likely was laced with asbestos.

Inside, all was small. Outside, all was big.

Yards flowed together or wore chain link fences – 

low, so neighbors could chat.

Always a gate so kids could run through

without climbing the gray diamond grids.

And run through they did! Year after year,

kids spilled through backyards

like minnows after a rain, lifting

and dropping each horseshoe-shaped latch

with the loud metal clank of freedom.

Our lot’s chain link remains on two sides

but the back now wears new neighbors’ wood – 

tall, silent slats have replaced the gate,

blocked the spot where a makeshift mailbox

let little girls share their secrets.

We won’t know those neighbors.

They won’t know the joys

of life in a chain link world.

Amy L. Greenspan spent much of her career as Managing Editor for a legal publishing company. Her poems appear in multiple editions of the Texas Poetry Calendar, as well as collections including Weaving the Terrain: 100-Word Southwestern Poems, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga, di-verse-city, cattails, and Haiku Presence.