[Photo by Tom Hibbard]

 

insipid gardens bloom
along Kenosha lakefront
covering empty downtown windows
Chrysler, General Motors
deliberate dealership reduction
doesn't care about the memory
of Johnny Midnight
UAW crabapple blossoms
Shenanigans, Mulligans
cumulo nimbi of K's
concealing Hyundai barriers
from Edward Hopper late next year
build a new engine plant
in Mexico with U.S. bail-out money
domestic Delavan Street
the river just beneath
Jackson Street bridge
gloomy Janesville
 
maingate 5555
all loading docks empty
bird-like Century fence
barbed-wire parking lots
GM smokestack unpainted
abandoned gas station
locked guard shacks
grass unmowed, dandelions
propane tanks, power station
on-site Voxx 411 Club
trash piles, "for sale"
the abused moving out
of squalid Cherry, Violet Streets
Mexican egg rolls, pa's pizza
souvenir cheese boxes
Kenosha flea market
restored the Spot drive-in
serving up double-cheeseburgers
with "the works"

cities of thorns
alive or dead
with their mouths their hands
their hypocrisy
or drunkenness
outrage or innocence
sleeping or awake
from far and near
loyal or betrayed
cemeteries depart
and all that isn’t in jail
is the colorful approaching 
jumble of dawn