As I eat breakfast my gaze wanders off
to the stop sign guarding the quiet corner
where we live. It’s leaning half way over.
There was no moon last night and no car
needing admonition so maybe it lay down
on a bed of snow for a little shut-eye
and I’ve caught it red-faced as it rises
from its nap. I won’t tell anyone. Talk
about a thankless job—it doesn’t need
all eight of its sides to count the cars
that we call traffic on the side road
coming up from the bay. It knows
every scratch and dent and driver
in a neighborhood where slow
is a way of life and stopping just
gentle punctuation. It must be
hard to be a sentry under orders not
to talk, spending every hour of your life
telling people what they already know,
never speaking from the heart, never
saying drive carefully or come back
in one piece. No doubt it envies
electronic signs that can change
their messages at will. I’m a lollipop
with angles it could flash at school kids
waiting for the bus or a winter berry
at the garden club or, at no one in particular,
a red push pin on a life-size map
of Owls Head marking the solemn spot
where we stop to say job well done.