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Arrhythmia
Gabriella Brand

In the back yard, the new neighbors have built a bocce
court where Nancy once placed a small statue of the
Buddha.
We used to sit, Nancy and I, in that wild greenery,
with the fat-bellied wise man between us
and drink chalky chai having a heart to heart,
while the children swooshed scooters down the driveway.

In the backyard, the new neighbors serve IPA beer and
nachos,
the young woman giggles and the young man guffaws
loud enough so I can hear them over the fence.

In the backyard, the new neighbors have strung a hundred
lights from tree to tree, a miniature Las Vegas, where
Nancy once placed a wobbly candle in a lantern and our
two families shared take-out food and Parcheesi.

In the backyard, the new neighbors are not Nancy,
and my children have grown and no one plays Parcheesi.

But at night the cicadas are still the cicadas
and the moon still rises over the firehouse
and I suppose I’ll get used to it, this new arrhythmia of
a heavy ball banging against a wooden rim,
the unfamiliar shadows, the new voices,
the filaments of connection, both thick and thin.

—
Gabriella Brand’s poetry, short stories, and Creative Non-Fiction have appeared in over fifty publications, including Comstock Review, Room, and Aji. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her essays appear in The Christian Science Monitor and The Globe and Mail. Gabriella loves travel, languages, kayaking, hiking, and hanging out with children. She teaches languages and writing in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut.

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Moon Poems Are All Set at Night by Henry Stimpson
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