The city is filled with the carcasses of yesterday’s homes,
Once lovely bones picked clean by the copper vultures,
Empty frames where glass held back the wind and rain
In years now gone and done
This was a young couple’s dream for a future together
That was a family pausing on the ladder to take a breath
Over there was an elderly widower whiling away his final days
In lonely sunrises and sunsets
And in the front room which hosted two dozen Thanksgiving feasts
Of turkey, yams, beans, cranberries, potatoes mashed with garlic
Now stands an oak which tore its way through rotten floors
A stalwart survivor of dire winter snows…
Nature reclaims the corpses
Of the urban boneyard
And remembers nothing of the humans
That would have let it die
— ptkh 09.30.14
