<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In a rural fringe, a future or a past<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A note on the architecture:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everything mimicked the worst clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

Malevolent structures so boxed<\/p>\n

with windows reduced to an acid lace<\/p>\n

of melodramatic busted glass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Inside we nested under yellow lights,<\/p>\n

folded our sheets into aspirational linen.<\/p>\n

We played at bunnies on a green background<\/p>\n

filmed with a shaky camera hand,<\/p>\n

hemorrhaging shadows.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don’t get us started.<\/p>\n

We didn’t ask to be raised like tedious summaries<\/p>\n

among the weedlots outside these dull houses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neither did she, partially forcefed,<\/p>\n

intentionally stumped, bundles<\/p>\n

of bumbled endeavors and cardboard lunches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We consume what we must, to make it up.<\/p>\n

In this neighborhood, tact never stood a chance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On that corner the shutters were never meant<\/p>\n

to stay hung. A pile of blank stones filled in for a yard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neither did we possess dunes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Flung and compacted discards<\/p>\n

into the pillars of our counterfeit landscape,<\/p>\n

topography pretty tedious to scale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What else could we have done?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Famished often<\/p>\n

we ranged as far as we could<\/p>\n

banded together against others<\/p>\n

who banded together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Drift<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

was not a motion we knew much about,<\/p>\n

landlocked, knowing squall<\/p>\n

but never breeze, guzzled dry in the heat,<\/p>\n

siphoned daily down to our paltry reserves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still the best way to describe it is<\/p>\n

drift<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

until one catches on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her wits are sawmill-honed.<\/p>\n

Though perhaps lacking sufficient perversion<\/p>\n

to be entertaining to a populace<\/p>\n

so jaded by a false claim to dearth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some buildings just don’t know when to come down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rare nights we had some respite from the Drought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They came thick like moss to snuff our rock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So what if she chose to leave<\/p>\n

all that unattractive suffering<\/p>\n

back in our hometown?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To refuse to admit<\/p>\n

she’d ever heard of the place<\/p>\n

or lived in that yellow house<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

or confess she blew it down<\/p>\n

with the last sour breath<\/p>\n

she dared draw there?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We consume what we must, to make it up.
\nIn this neighborhood, tact never stood a chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-ducts","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4953"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4956,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions\/4956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}