Ellsworth Drive:

Dust descends on a dead city;

the fine grit clings to all surfaces.

Sickly orange light reeks from a streetlamp

and bulges against the sallow glow of a flourescent storefront.

Each passing car strains Ellsworth’s asphalt.

Stagnant, pungent pools of unidentifiable liquid,

rippled and spread by the wind,

burn the broken concrete sidewalk and the asphalt.

Not even insects roam here.

Nothing is open. Shadows in the shops.

Mannequins stiffen under glass.

Random chunks of a parking lot are disappeared,

rough scars and pocks as with a grenade attack.

The abandoned Rite-Aid coughs;

it could be a vandal, or a burglar,

or more likely just some rotted shelves collapsing.

Its bulky visage gives no sign.

Across from there is a field, a simple open field

which evaded other buildings that went up around it.

It is cold and mostly bare;

the grass and dirt blur.

And across the field lies US Route 29;

atop a newly-resurfaced carpet of modern asphalt,

past a row of ersatz marble storefronts

and reflective-glass offices,

a thousand cars are rushing swiftly by.

Their headlights stream away.

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