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Old development
At the end
of a dead end, north
of that unspoken meridian
in every town, a gravel drive
that used to be a street
when they still used signs
the color of picnic mustard.
It's just important enough
for its own fire pond. The sun
rises on the wrong side.
No one lives there
but rumors. Half a mile
up on the county road,
a restaurant that fails
or burns in different hands
each year. Neighbors
don't ask. Their children
won't wonder. They all move
to New York. Place
frays at the edge, like the great
pair of jeans you won't throw away,
but demote to worse and worse
housework each year, necessary
and miserable.
At the end
of a dead end, north
of that unspoken meridian
in every town, a gravel drive
that used to be a street
when they still used signs
the color of picnic mustard.
It's just important enough
for its own fire pond. The sun
rises on the wrong side.
No one lives there
but rumors. Half a mile
up on the county road,
a restaurant that fails
or burns in different hands
each year. Neighbors
don't ask. Their children
won't wonder. They all move
to New York. Place
frays at the edge, like the great
pair of jeans you won't throw away,
but demote to worse and worse
housework each year, necessary
and miserable.
Can't promise I'll do it tomorrow, but:
ReplyDeleteLike new bowls of oatmeal, our souls
are steel-cut, severed by sun
and the distance we measure
by satellite. The sun this morning
is sprinkled with something extra,
severance maybe. Sever, severe, ever—
how easily I could slip out of this car
and into the tall weeds over there
where the railroad tracks pretend
to take someone somewhere
and a few weeks ago, a guy stumbled
out of the Burger King gut-shot.
He’d decided: today was the day
to rob it, but the guy two spots
behind him in line had a licensed
handgun beneath his jacket.
It sounds like a story but it isn’t.
-PSC
You know I love a good cereal poem, Scott!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant ending.
ReplyDelete