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The house next door, a poem by T.D. Richards

The house next door

was lifeless until yesterday when I saw
a family of raccoons. The old man and his
skinny dog who lived there before-- left
without closing the front door and no one
has seen them since. A fellow across the
street who wears thick glasses swears he
saw the old man in the Walmart Parking
Lot on Main Street the rainy night the door
was left wide open. He was singing loudly
pushing a cart filled with cases of dog food.
The paper boy says he’s owed five months
delivery and the mail lady says she can’t put
any more mail in the box and oh, by the way,
someone should return the checks sent the
old man from Social Security.

by T.D. Richards



From T.D. Richards: “After a career in corrections, Tom Richards began taking poetry classes at the Indiana Writers Center. In 2013, he published a collection of poems, This Side and That. He lives in central Indiana with his wife.”