�tis a town of rabbit raisers and glassblowers
��������milliners with windows of ribbons
feathers, falling fruit
������������������������and birds� nests
a town of candy apple diners open all night

a boy breakfasts with his mother, polishes
the booth�s slipp�ry seat with his excitement
��(she�d indulged his upgrade
���������������������from the short stack
in spite of his small belly)


�����������tis a town that wears prayer ears
�������������� kneels under cathedral colors


the boy plays the jukebox
with sticky fingers�����she wore an itsy, bitsy
teeny, weeny yellow polka dot bikini


���������������������������the town plays
�����with a joy close to terror


downtown is a worked-up impasto
of jovial store fronts,
������������������������streaming banners
��������and penny arcades �
at the candlepin bowling alley a plaque

dedicates each lane to a founding father
���� its unnoticed decay creeps, grows
up the ramshackle stairs where
�����������������Tom Brown scrubs his apartment
floors with lye, hangs flypaper curls,
stows his mother�s body neatly in the closet

on the mall�s rink, by the starlit gazebo
���������sweet-cheeked children learn to skate
with a chair as partner � on the primary school�s
playground, crime tape yellow-fences
������Calvin-the-glueman�s corpse

some never dare drop the smile,
never think of Ursula�s naked, dirty child
in the basement�������� the birds' terror

lights east street and, outward,
��������benumbed boats begin to ride the tide
���ladies at the bow

~

1st Place NPAC - Feb. '04