Ex-Suburban
Finding small solace in swales and
following the Joneses around on my bike
as the sun goes down an old man
with a Trump sign impaling his St. Augustine grass
drags his recycling bin overflowing with Mountain Dew
carcasses to the curb.
The remnants of his rampage are not surprising
I think as I catalog the loquat trees
and smile slyly at oblivious neighbors like a character
for whom the plot twists;
they don’t know I’m going to
steal their fruit and
they don’t have to.
The way the suburbs claw at me is criminal;
I can’t relinquish years spent walking cul-de-sacs at dusk.
I sigh inside the smell of weed(s) freshly picked,
a bouquet by me for me with dirty fingernails to
release into wind and flatten under
wheels winding
on through the neighborhood,
flat and stale and stirring silently under my shoes,
inches away and never touching.
Allie Wisniewski • 2021
