1I am not poor, said the old man.

he wasn’t poor.

I listened to his squeaky voice

and looked away from his face,

which worried me with each

wrinkle that trained into his cheeks.

instead I guided my eyes

in the direction of the moon,

or at least where I hoped the moon would be

out the corner of his livingroom window.

I watched the sky and frowned

when I could not find

what I was looking for.

They are just the signs of the smiles I’ve had,

he said, knowing I was still blinking away

his scratchy crumpled face.

That was another reason I didn’t like to talk

to my neighbor. his eyes would tell me

I was too young to understand life

and his face reminded me

that time was going to get me as well.

I dared to glance at his vieny hands

which burned cold against his knees.

y-you could let me help you,

I stutter, not really wanting to at all.

His lifeless eyes closed that night,

and his mouth stopped smiling.

I couldn’t stop myself from wondering

that if he had stopped smiling sooner,

the wrinkles never would have come,

and then

the wrinkles never would have

taken him away, in the folding fashion that they did.

His life,

a long strip of clay

on a church kitchen counter.

I know his clay was that playful pink

that boys aren’t supposed to enjoy,

but they all do anyway.

Slap.

His strip of clay folded in half one time,

and smoothed itself on itself.

The stack was higher,

but the wrinkle on his cheeks were weaving

as his clay

folded.

The night before the last fold

was made

he gave me a book. It was heavy, and it

was not labeled.

Old things never accepted labels. Only new.

The title was on the back cover,

an odd place of recognition.

When I mentioned this to my neighbor,

he looked at me with those eyes again,

and I was once more reminded

of my incompetence and foolishness

in the church kitchen.

Seven months later I forgot about my neighbor

because the new family moved in

and there was a boy my age

who I spied on from my bedroom window

into his

bedroom window.

The chair that was my platform

was much too hard for my knees.

I had to watch my fantasy in comfort.

I quickly stalked around my bedroom for

something less abrasive on which to kneel.

I found a softish leather book

that was heavy

and no visible title.

Oh.

And my neighbor’s eyes peered into mine.

Troy shouldn’t be looking into my guest bedroom window,

now, should he? I didn’t think so. Git down from there

and look at your papa’s magazines.

He haunted me to the point

where the neighbor boy was no longer attractive.

I nervously swished my blinds shut and opened

the nameless book on my lap,

a little angry, to be honest.

It was the Bible.

But before I threw it in the recycling bin,

I realized that the only reason

that my neighbor put this in my hands

was so I would read to him

before he went to sleep.

I had assumed that night he could not be helped

and also assuming that richness had to do

with health.

No.

My neighbor simply had run out of clay

and he wanted me

to tell him

(incompetently and foolishly)

that it wasn’t so.