One black-barked dogwood already went
White by the time that I drove by yesterday
Afternoon in the hard sunshine. Strange
Little town, houses lining the old main route,
A double row of American flags in the wind,
Like motley families crowding a parade,
The dowdy, the overdressed, the plain,
The ones with boarded-up eyes, the lit,
The sprawling and mostly the small, some
Built of black basalt boulder cobbles
Pockmarked by bubbles when they cooled
However many thousand years ago then
Formed the overhanging slopes that still
Seem to threaten to flow down over town.
Ugly, really. Ugly local stories, too.
A couple of years ago, a boy murdered
The elderly woman he'd done chores for
For years, stealing her purse and car, then
Getting caught and hauled out shrieking
From his girlfriend's parents' trailer
By the river a few days later. Last month,
A father arrested for maltreatment
Of a child kept locked up, malnourished
And in filth, just a few months after
The child's mother had lost custody
Because of her gross neglect. Kind
Of town, one imagines, only Shirley Jackson
Or David Lynch could love. Dock Boggs
Sang "Little Black Train," and I waved
To the flags and the dogwood in passing.
Next week all the cherries, plums, and other
Dogwoods will cloud the dour house-fronts
With pink and white blossoms, and if
The train hasn't left yet nor the monster
Under the hill started moving after its long,
Long nap, I may drive by a few times more
To see that floral boulevard and smile.
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