Magz Wright - Mapleton Grove
Mapleton Grove was a place of its own. <br />Plastic, nearly neon green spikes that exist nowhere else, <br />grew up out of the lawns. <br />Neighbors conversed eagerly every morning, <br />only to check a million times at night <br />to make sure their doors are locked. <br />Everyone knew each other well, <br />basically speaking in a language that no outsider could understand. <br />An outsider like me. <br /> <br />Day one I walked, lost <br />Among hundreds of identical shiny black mailboxes. <br />Their bright, yet glazed, eyes could not see me; <br />did not want to. <br />Nobody wanted chains in a world of soft pink sweaters <br />tied around shoulders. <br /> <br />As I gagged on the unpleasant mixed scent <br />of pastries and chlorine (for there were no other smells, <br />like a blank sheet of paper) , <br />wandering past the same white-shuttered house for the twelfth time, <br />night began to eat the day. <br />Mapleton Grove molted into something else; <br />a festering exploration. <br /> <br />Through a window, above a scentless flowerbox, <br />I could see a crack of life inside. <br />Carelessness hadn’t shut them off completely. <br />My new neighbor’s wife <br />was being held in a house that wasn’t hers, <br />by a man that was not her mustached husband. <br /> <br />Was every house <br />behind the curtains, <br />as juicily sweet on these perfectly asphalted streets? <br />If I snuck up real close, just a breath away, <br />and peek in, <br />would I find more interesting secrets? <br />Sense couldn’t hold me back. <br /> <br />Mr. Eldrige had a fling with a man, <br />Desoto’s daughter fed a can. <br />Bottles covered Mrs. Vernon’s floor, <br />as her teenaged son fled out the door. <br />These were the people who hadn’t accepted me? <br /> <br />Now, every night, when the air hangs thick, <br />and small bugs drown in the overpopulation of pools, <br />I take a walk along the roads without bumps, <br />just to ‘visit’ the neighbors. <br />Nobody could quite creep <br />like the black sheep of Mapleton Grove.<br /><br />Magz Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mapleton-grove/