After rain our clay
hills smell like dishes
left for days. Cowboy engineers plugged
the drainages and tractored pads for homes.
Felled oaks leave a fetch for sour wind
and puddles grow algae dumplings. Some days
our creeks run black with lumpy gravy.
For-sale signs mushroom in corner planters
so casual reps can fleece our elders clean.
They’d rewrite the history of limestone.
Some early singer with a microphone,
she scatters dollar bills by red brick gates:
“There’s extra closets, girls, and lots of shelves!”
A for effort, no? She gives new meaning
to roofers propped on hand-me-down crutches.
Some shiny actor polishes the day
for agents ranked in linen uniforms.
They’ll tell you, “No fall, no hard wind can hurt
a people stacked in houses rooted deep as these.”
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