Rural Route Three.
Billboards.
Debris.
This is God’s Green Earth
Where Hope applied
And got denied.
Where teenage brides
Watch children ride
Hand me down bikes in
Hand me down clothes.
Heads down riding fast past
Boarded up houses.
Past lives and
Past spouses.
Windows.
Staplegunned in plastic.
Doors.
Ripped from hinges.
Racoon
In the cupboard.
Snake
In the sink.
Sparrows.
Scraping the ceilings.
Beating their wings in silence.
First Published by The Orchards Poetry Journal