The bells peal eight to bid farewell.
The eerie light of spring
fades back into the wormbed.
These broken walls and weeping ceilings;
they are my home.
My irises bud in complete ignorance.
Traffic slows.
It is
--on a whole--
very late.
The snowman has melted.
Marauding rats scavenge the kitchen,
unlike the vagrants
who have deserted the ship.
We need no more vacuuming.
We shall hear no more trains,
whistling loud
to prevent the smashed cars we have seen,
barefoot on the broken glass
beneath the bridge.
Who will feed Stray Brother in the thicket?
Where will the spiders go?
My hidden summer porch,
littered with potting soil and grease rags,
lies quiet and dead.
The carnival is leaving town.
Elvis has left the building.
My days at the hub are numbered.
The trees have stopped dancing.
Two old Fords roar to life,
and the sun goes down on the house on Gregg Street.
-- Darla Kay Sanders-Weatherford