A Dying Town
Hardware store: padlocked doors, blocked turnstiles and littered aisles.
Co-op: closed: stock disposed, cash drawer open, and windows broken.
Rusted gas pump: now rubbish dump, price so low impossible.
Roofs collapsed: sidewalks cracked, and potholes multiply.
Hotel: shuttered: windows covered, overlook an empty street.
Postal office; only boxes; attendant gone.
Senior’s Centre: few to enter, table, chairs, and coffee pot.
Bulletin board: wood by the cord, clinic shut, no pitch and putt.
Empty street, no one to greet, nowhere left to go.
Still some hold on, surviving on their welfare and their pensions
Shaded streets; curtains, sheets; stairs collapsed, yards relapsed.
Squatters move in: but don’t fit in, hide behind their keep out signs.
She needs the walker her children got her, just to get the mail,
House needs repairs, but her affairs leave little cash.
Along her walk well tended flowers block, the encroaching weeds.
Rope swing frayed, a child once played: ‘neath the unpruned tree.
Broken glider swing: evokes the sting of memories long passed.
Rusted trike: broken bike, wagon lost among the feral grass.
Once the neighbour’s children laboured, a dime to mow her lawn
Once others cared: of her needs aware, brought food, and company.
But few remain who still retain the means to help.
© David E. Moon, 2014 All rights reserved