Screaming “pay attention to me” with blue balloons
And 50’s finery, some weeds in parking cracks
If one is lucky? The rusted bus stops with sun-bleached
Canopies, where shopping bags hang swaying in the breeze,
Are all one can bear not to see, and the carts parked
Too easily at Blue Wave Liquor across the street, next to
The pet cemetery that’s been there forever, and a vacant
Field for lease. It’s not the rot and mildew one has to
Attend to soon, in the cool drive through this clean and
sunny
Boulevard, that’s even cleaner and even sunnier
Than the one’s one used to know, when one still thought
About the homeless under cottonwoods, and the
Hammered scraps of planks and boards
High up the neighbor’s tree, not fit to be a crow’s nest,
Instead a squatter’s flag, that advertises, in the quiet
Smirk of green, the maw of what was never said,
The forbidden beauty of want on which one could not
Look away.
