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Vacant Lot

by Tom Wylie


Another drive-by
They seem endless
and unavoidable
in our one-road town

How many car window views?
A thousand perhaps

I think it was 1982
when the house fell backwards
collapsed down the hill
into the creek

Your bedroom was in the back
on the second floor over
the unheated garage

In the falling
parts of it must have been
among the first sections to
hit the rocks and water below

We first lay down together
in that room on your bed
madly kissing and feeling

Lucky for us
your mother banged hard
on the door and shouted
“Knock-knock. That’s enough”

just as your hand touched my
breast, the first anyone
had ever done

Now, as I look again
there is nothing except
tall weeds, ugly piles of black-top
stones
an old tire and
nameless junk

dumped scattered and tossed
where the small two-story rented house
once stood and was your home,
for just a few years

A dreary ghost-like lot
as is my memory of you
fallen down
discarded


Copyright © 2014 by Tom Wylie

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