It comes, first, in a wave of unease, settles into benign, weathered concrete walkways speckled with empty liquor bottles there is something ethereal about these neighborhoods, something about what can be seen and What remains behind vinyl-panelled building and Chain-link fence. you remember reading about these old houses, blue shuttered and red doored White pickets, Each one placed upon tree stump foundations by tired men with tired hands and too much drink in their bellies. men with too much time on their hands men who never meant to be fathers men who meet in the basements of churches to talk about restless legs, begging to run and the seduction of a smooth, curved flask of Brown you heard once that it rots you from the inside the distraction, sedation, we build our homes in our own image, decay and desperation dressed up in a new coat of paint. Time stops when you stay for a while, that’s what the locals keep saying. you’re only beginning to understand it. You have stood here, facing this home Across the street from a school-house church For half an hour, which was really only pretending To be five minutes (your watch has only moved five notches, but you’re still skeptical) the church itself is sizable, empty for a Tuesday evening -God rests on Tuesdays- yet the sign in front with missing letters and faded fluorescent looks almost pretty in the purples and pinks of setting sun Urges SALV TION OR D MNAT ON Jesus might not come in a bottle, But it seems He serves the same purpose. the kids here seem restless, avert their eyes. Their parents tell them to keep close to kin, and still they bike down to the stream to smoke cheap cigarettes and pray they don’t inherit the rot from their fathers. forsakes their red-faced, red-doored heritage the unrest boils, hoping to be bound for Better things. “You know, this town is built on tree stumps,” an old voice, gruff and crusty like bark, scrapes at you “folks ain’t got no roots here, though.
things my mother taught me
