Careful: step out into the not-quite-street.
It used to be a swamp, and sunk boar, pushed
roots into the air, and stank, and free
from old purposes still it tries to take
you in. This parking lot is where the gash
of a hill once stood. Breathe slow. Speak
short sentences. No knowing when the earth,
so rich and red, might fill a lung. And rushing
past us, silent now, the houses, mirthful,
cackling with flame just thirty years ago.
Nearly done. Why have all the fishes
disappeared? This pavement used to glow
with them, the yearning of a sea grown thin
from lack. Now, trust the surf, how it washes,
come, the crowd is surging, let us swim.