Little did I know,
That twenty years from that day,
All that would be left of the body
Was a sebaceous patch of dirt,
Saturating the curb,
And colonized by roadside weeds.
-
The road that led into the expansion was still the same,
It was perhaps the only thing they hadn’t changed,
An aged thoroughfare that the metropolis could reap,
A makeshift umbilical cord to an artificial placenta,
Spewing out a workforce,
And shipping in a new franchise each day.
-
It was in a single afternoon that our community was shattered
By a pump-action shotgun, in a trembling hand.
Maybe just one shot was needed, but I remember ten.
Four went into the hundred-pound dog, but a few hit the girl.
I doubt anyone thought that it would make a difference,
But they still took her to the city, wrapped in a limp blanket.
-
It was the owner himself that put him down.
He had no reservations; the girl was also his.
When they took her to the hospital,
They left the hound by the curb,
And there, he would stay, like a shameful disease,
Even after the town was bought out.
-
They say he had been getting sick,
But nobody could have predicted this,
No one ate that night, or was able to sleep.
And even twenty years later,
It’s hard to get those images,
And that false sense of guilt, out of my head.
-
But coming back here,
And seeing this fertile land sterilized,
paved over with asphalt and concrete,
This stained piece of road,
Of undeniable history,
Is the only thing that’s beautiful.