On a front lawn across from a cul de sac,
In a maze of brown-trimmed beige houses,
The guest is put in mind of another, nearly
Identical setting near Atlanta, Georgia,
More than twenty years ago. This pattern,
This kind of pattern, still raw and novel
When he was born has proven durable.
Even the infamous soullessness of these
Motherboard bedroom neighborhoods
Feels soulful to him now, if not appealing.
This particular setting benefits from a wall
Of snowy mountains well off to the east
And a nearer, similar but smaller wall to the west.
An old water tower from back when this was
Ranchland hovers over the nondescript herds
Of cowed houses like a spider from Mars.
But it’s not just the vivid backdrop, absent
In so many other, similar communities, not
Just the unusually fresh spring air this day
That gives this necklace of shells its soul.
It’s that the guest resting on the front steps
Has lived long enough now to notice
That charm and strange are not estranged
From any of the duller names and flavors,
That the similar and the boring, the nothing
Much expanses of the nearly homogeneous
Remain the common parlance of all the cosmos.
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