Home Town

 

I grew up in one of those towns

where both sides of the track was the wrong side.

It was a place of indecision

where the river flowed in both directions.

Every street was a one way street

even the dead ends.

A place where failure was always an option,

in fact it was the most likely outcome.

There were no winners here

just boarded up storefronts and abandoned factories.

We climbed through holes in chain link fences

and dared each other to ascend the piles

of dangerous leftovers from discarded American dreams.

Tall, dark, concrete buildings

with randomly placed holes in the floors

that vent shafts or steam pipes once occupied. 

We rode our bikes through vacant gravel lots

long before the government had labeled them

“Superfund Sites.”

The older kids taught the younger ones

how to play with matches without getting burned.

There was little left to ignite however,

anything that would burn had already been incinerated long ago.