tires bumping and dust rising
we rattle past fields of unkind soil
along a dirt-forgotten road
the ethereal sky
sings out its universal summer blue
and rolling hills (which I, in ignorance,
call mountains)
bid us round the bend
a lopsided road sign bears witness to
Dunsville, Pop. 207,
where a string of injured houses
lurch hopefully towards the road
we hurl past
a weary paint-chipped barn
the carcasses […]
Once pots of earth
carried miles
in strawberry baskets
“and Susan shall have
a new hat.”
Now streets
deserted beyond life,
windows carelessly nailed shut.
Abandoned flowers bleed
across broken sidewalks.
A squeaking screen door
gapes open in the ghostly wind,
then suffers shut.
A childless swing
moves to remembered life.
Thus is the town of houses,
built in the time of dreams,
of the new frontier
now a graveyard
untended and
unwept.
~ Melodie […]
I am classified
senior.
Here there are no elder statesmen,
only the rich become elders.
The poor become merely old.
Fodder for special housing.
On occasions they remark
my attendance.
Once I was part of the GNP,
now I am congratulated
for surviving.
They ask my age impudently
as they ask a child.
We are both referred to
in the third person
as if we were not in the room
which […]
