night coming on

Go back from where you came, incognito,

masked as middle-aging, graying,

heavier than the blonde, summer-bronzed

Aegean who sailed off years ago,

 

come, not for a class reunion, but

for personal reconnaissance: the road

where the interstate exit curlicues,

past the failed dog track's

 

weedy, sparrow haven, once a sea

of ripening greens we swam mid-

summers, past the empty packing plant's

maze of runs and holding pens,

 

the Lion's playground, civic garden's

wintering graves, crisscross

of one ways, no U-turns, and what

hangs on: school, church, tavern

 

where the faithful worship, Main Street

now a roundabout, bakery

burned to ash and timbers, Diner razed,

Laundromat intact, old newspaper route

 

where who would be loitering:

no merzy-doats, no loop-the-loops.

Just a down-on-his-luck dog at dusk,

a bucket of old moonglow and rust.

 

Drowsing now. Memory lanes once

tissue-thin darken, clot, encrust with sludge

a discolor we forget the name of,

same old ruts we repeat umpteen

 

times like old-timers we would never be.

Loosestrife finds cracks to come up through,

next lives to hurry off into. We lately

less enjoy the joy of our desiring.

 

--Miguel de O

 

Done