Main Street Mural

A broken gum ball machine spreads color
to every corner of the hall. Just another
prime example of a decaying mall, and there
is no one coming to put things back together.
The skylight is cracked like a spiderweb
and let’s the rain pour through like tears
seeping into a blanket, it gets heavier
the longer the storm rages on,
and by the morning I’m convinced
everyone will be gone.
The sunlight makes the sidewalks solid fire
so any barefoot walking nomad will be tested
on their tolerance for heat. The same goes
for the street that lets off fumes one can inhale
to put their thoughts away.
No respect remains for the forgotten day,
those spaces on the calendar that must stay
blank so their anniversaries can fade back
into common Tuesday’s as the week keeps
shifting slightly with the year.
It’s important to take stock of fear,
but not to let that same activity be repeated
like a mantra in your mind.
Let things surprise you even if the news
is always bad because the act of anticipation
is really a declaration of the future.
There’s a mural of a woman on the brick wall
on the west side of the first building you could
see while walking down Main Street.
It was an advertisement for a store no longer
there, but the new owners never tried
to erase it. It was like they knew their best
attempt would be the same as setting fire
to an open field of iris in the rain.