From the book published in 2021, And Don’t Come Back.
Night Opera
Empty garage at night
door open
a bright white cube
not a thing in it but three men
sit center stage slouched in lawn chairs
a semi-circle of sweat and beer-drinking
in the glow of fluorescent lights
in one of the townhouses
squared up around a parking lot
and a couple of tired trees
panting in the thick air
it’s the kind of night
where men sit
drinking beer in an empty garage
under fluorescent lights
while the kids ride their bikes around the court
weave in and out of the parked cars
between what they’re yelling
and the cycle-on-cycle-off
exasperated invective
from all those air conditioners
the night is a choir
singing out a haphazard round
in counterpoint to the men who
Talk. Lift beers.
Talk. Talk.
Lift beers. Talk.
Lift beers.
8/3/20
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
A universal scene. Not sure I like those men.
Yes. In summer the open door garage gathering at night is popular. It’s almost like the participants are on a stage, one set after another – the guys talking, the fellow working on his car, or the lady moving boxes around or else kids playing, I think often they don’t realize how revealed they are!
Revealed and predictabke.
Hehe! I’ve seen this scene too many times to count – that you’ve captured it so succinctly is amazing!!
Thank you. It’s very common right now here with it being summertime and people enjoying sitting outside (even though this was written a couple of years ago, well, some patterns don’t change, do they?)
This is my neighborhood every night : D
Yes. I see this scene a lot too, especially now in the middle of summer.
lovely, Claudia. This one really appeals to me. It paints a really descriptive and affectionate picture of a sweaty evening in a hot summer, while grown ups get on with the job of keeping cool and the children play.
Thank you. I wrote this about an actual scene I saw in a townhouse development near me, on a hot summer night as we so often have here. The way the townhouses were arranged made it so that outdoor activities were in a public space with different groups side by side. Plus it was at the beginning of the pandemic so people were outside all the time when maybe in the past they might have been indoors. It was fascinating to me.
Yes I can understand your fascination, and you expressed the scene beautifully.