The fields are dry and spare,
the land more brown than green.
Spring is drifting into summer
without a breath of protest.
No rain. No promise in the sky.
Along
the old men sit in the shade
beneath sagging tarpaper roofs,
talking and drinking beer.
The kids drink soda pop,
riding up and down
the deserted street
on their bikes.
Some have clipped
playing cards
to the spokes
of their wheels.
The intermittent
rata-tat-tat echoes
off storefront windows.
Whenever a car passes
it honks at the kids,
and that echoes, too.
By dusk some old men
have to be helped home
by their sons or daughters,
or whoever takes the trouble.
Some may stay all night,
dreaming of the past and
a worthless promise of rain
beneath the star-scattered
bowl of the empty sky.
Throughout the city
the air is still as stone.
When a breeze stirs
it fades quickly
in its first breath,
as if the cook
at the local diner
has clamped
a lid on it.
---
Appeared in my collection Resonance Dark and Light, Eldritch Press, 2015
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