a threadbare ramble burns my American dream just beyond the trees
a
phone keeps
ringing
down the hallway
there
must be
no
answering machine
as
the rings drone on
and
I start anticipating
each
one’s beginning
brass
hammer plated
between
two bells
or
at least
how
I imagined
how
the sound
being
born would be
old
rotary
black
and heavy
hard
wired to the wall
on
a little table
near
a floor lamp
with
mice wait too
for
someone to pick it up
so
they can continue
foraging
for anything left out
for
something reachable
in
the tenacity of tiny claws
and
sharp noses
for
in this land
men
and mice
are
always searching
for
the prolific to bleed
and
for all the ripe
to
drink in
so they can
eat every stain
slowly
the
milk is dry
and
the honey bees have died
or
at least slowed
outside
the windows
looking
for fallen pieces of sugar
as
every bloom has gone
on
to apples and other fruit
and
are heavy prices
in
the trees
trucks
rumble
in
the distance
as
a weekend approaches
broaching the poached
parts
of humanity
it
is the end
of
another work week
and
this land’s mentality says
we
must reward ourselves
in
neon dreams
stripping
the landscape
where
gasoline is cheaper
than
the blood we drink
so
we keep carving away
at
the sounds in the forests
to
pave monuments
to
our ashen dignity
each
mile, stringing
lodge
pine poles
soaked
in oil
hoisting
our desire
to
be electricity in veins
that
explain
our
constant need
to
be heard
as
the phone
keeps
ringing
down
the hallway
and
the right answers
seem
faraway
EJR
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