Confluence

Did you ever worry your town was cursed?

Or were you too busy detailing your Acura

Going for 10 mile runs

Reading books you don’t understand

The past like an overhead transparency sitting on top of the present

The story of your life drawn with green Vis-a-Vis.

Its skin is wrinkled and humped between the airport and the freeway

The roar of jets mingle with the roar of traffic.

You’ve learned to tune out the noise,

Just like you’ve learned to tune out your nagging thoughts

How badly are we failing?

Why do we all get sick?

What have we done to this place?

Where the Green becomes the Duwamish is a hill that is the origin of all things

And we almost bulldozed it flat;

Half of it is gone, the remainder encircled by a gun range, a train, and the dark houses of

Poverty Hill

The impulse to raze where someone else finds joy is strong

To improve and make productive and efficient

Channels of energy squeezed into a trough

So taut we can no longer drink.

When you go back and flip through the yearbooks

1917 to now

You can see the solemn faces of long-dead teenagers

Intent on producing and improving

Serious in their pursuit of the promise of the future;

But if you look closely you can see

Unease in the margins;

The airport sprawling like fungus, the shadows of the planes more frequent

The freeway wedged into the valley

Strawberry fields paved over

The farmers sent away and disappeared

The Bon Marche and Lamonts and Jay Jacobs

We can buy all the things all the time and we think 

This is progress.

Girls with permed hair and drawn faces

Where did they go after ninth grade?

Did they join the others at the bus stop across the street from the 7/11?

Their homes so scary that a stranger in a pickup truck seemed safe.

Driving south down Military Road

You hope they felt the breeze on their faces from the open window

And that a good song was playing on KJR

And for a moment they felt free.

If you keep turning the pages you see

Dirty white giving way to mottled brown

And you pretend you think this is good

But deep in your heart you know it’s too hard and

Want to return to the good old days

When we all agreed on how to shape the world

And could feel good about what we've done.

Your face has grown tight with the strain

Of trying to hold all the pieces together

And you feel like if you hug your town close enough

And swear never to leave

You can heal the cracks and make it all work again

The future you were promised 

Will finally come to fruition

And the curse you think you don’t believe in

Will be lifted.