The American Museum

 

The town has been so long gone

there at the side of the quiet river

the factory wears rust. Sidewalks empty.

A dead bird turned to a skeleton.

Uncle Sam’s Gas is on the skids.

The weeds are growing over.

A heron walked long legs in the plot.

So many houses have broken windows

where people whispered out.

A car scrapes by, taped together.

That was when they swept in. Like a dream

in their white limousines. They got out and

started to unwind tape measures.

A couple men watched from the doorway

in the Avalon. All the windows above are dark

along the block but a few eyes looked out.

It was hard to tell, there were reflections.

They walked their yellow tape round the blocks

past houses, boarded shops, the cracked gray stream

of mainstreet. Then they got back in their long cars

to retreat.

After some silence, the doors opened and those eyes

came out. The tape rattled like a snake in the wind.

It had words on it. You had to get close to read.

Sold, in black letters, Sold, spelled every three feet.

For the next couple days the rumors grew and flew

inflated as a zeppelin tied down to the town.

Still, nobody knew what the strangers would do

until the barges arrived on the river. Then,

it was as if Noah himself had returned, peeling

away from the land in ones and twos everything

that had value to The American Museum.

 

This poem is from Bowl of Water

(Bottom Dog Press, 2004)

photos from our garden this morning