Adopted Road

They pick at my cuff and pull a wiper from my car's tonsure,
Atrabiliar and surly, they explore me with censure.
Reason falls short, favours the non-subtle extrapolation—
To those not open to the concept of appropriation,
Someone who wears an army jacket must be in the army,
Or an impostor; and the part of the road that happens to be
Outside their house, is their own, by camber and corollary,
Not for the common; and thus they seize, when they do not get me,
Onto the cuffs, the sleeves and collar of my camouflaged smocks,
Uncomprehending of incongruous fatigues, orthodox
Of war, being worn on the school run; and when my car is parked
Outside, they act up, at dawn, undisturbed at dawn, foreheads marked
With entitlement, and they make my windscreen wiper acute.
Peaceable in isolation, I would merely institute
A basis for enlightenment, a parable to digest:
I started to help him dig his car from the snow, but left the rest
For him to disperse, alone, after he mused tentatively
That I had sound practical reasons, other than charity,
To aid; he could not puzzle it, how someone could just be kind,
Frivolously neighbourly, on this adopted road inclined
To flood, though not on my side.