Читать книгу Local News from Someplace Else - Marjorie Maddox - Страница 15

–Newspaper Headline; Wellsboro, PA

All the safe, small towns—

gas streetlights silly in retrospect—

proclaim surprise. What else

when their children’s open

veins stain the school tiles?

Here the cornstalks stay calm;

the cost-of-living low?

The cobblestone streets empty out

from all but spectators shooting cameras,

murder and media sole companions

in this former tourist-attraction for tranquility.

Eventually, summer skateboarders

will again hunt back roads,

barefoot teens will dive

into abandoned swimming holes,

grade-schoolers at bat will boast

that they were there, that day,

in the hallway, the cafeteria,

the next classroom over.

On the hottest day

when a small town’s boredom sizzles

into the limbs of its children,

they will wonder what it was like to aim,

to hit the target fast and accurately,

to explode in the unfamiliar dazzle

of forbidden city lights.