i spooked my town into receding
back into the lusty green leaves and the
cottonwood snow from whence it came.
i crawled up from a storm grate on south kobuk
and pressed my heavy fingers to the sidewalk artery
and pressed my heavy fingers ‘til i felt the beat subside-
now we reside
only in the ghosts of ice cream truck chimes
that drift with the wind through overgrown lilacs,
in the bent metal park benches choked with plant life
that curl and rust on forever,
tattered blankets left to rot in corners of parks, still damp with all the long-forgotten coitus we performed on god’s lawns.
we whisper from hot fields of clover,
grown over picnic benches and broken down swingsets,
from the plaster virgin marys buried deep in young jungles.
full of grace and eyes red with pollination
this is my confession:
as i wandered these suburbs, wearing deep shoeprints and
dissatisfaction,
in my path
the world grew over and reclaimed the homes we’d made.
now no stoplight
no pavement driveways
no expensive fencing will keep out the loneliness of
this verdant life that creeps
but cannot speak.