Rural Route Three.
Billboards.
Debris.
This is God’s Green Earth
Where Hope applied 
And got denied.
Where teenage brides 
Watch children ride
Hand-me-down bikes in
Hand-me-down clothes.
Heads down riding fast past
Boarded up houses.
Past lives and 
Past spouses.
Windows. 
Staple-gunned in plastic.
Doors. 
Ripped from hinges.
Racoon
In the cupboard.
Snake
In the sink.
Sparrows.
Scraping the ceilings. 
Beating their wings in silence.

*previously published in The Orchards Poetry Journal