Downtown

     is missing, 
          just an afterlife 
     remains, sky 
more lid than space,
     sidewalks swept
          by a lost shuffle of air.  
     In absentia 
curls all the way 
     from library griffons 
          to EZ Cash 
     as the pretzel lady 
counts nickels 
     where clouds break 
          apart, subliminal
     floes in the night's 
dark pond of illusion,
     streetlamps crook'd
           like swans preening
     their silver necks.

Fledgling

Two men with pushbrooms 
sweep the new main street, 
a dirt road with hopes 
of becoming asphalt, 
a dust-and-stone curlicue 
right down the middle's 
exaltation of balance, 
but oh the middle never holds— 
This town will be different, 
new citizens say as trees wave 
their fair-weather naiveté, 
the wind picking up, rising 
to birds who sit on power lines 
plumb and still as clothespins.  
Maybe this place will slow 
the mind's combustible eye
and some unassuming collective 
keep things small, 
though the corn will grow 
an inch by dinner and old houses 
won't be enough for those who stay.