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A Selection from In The Coming Of The World


ROADSIDE TOWN

A lone dandelion flush with yellow
underneath the frayed billboard
announcing the town as if
it were still a movie star, but then:
giant ice cream cone made of string lights,
unplugged, still as a chapel,
a few splintered picnic benches
arranged like pews around the take-out stand;
boy standing on a pillar of milk crates
behind the chain-link fence
in his cape made of bed sheet
flapping checkered flags like a hummingbird
as if he were Neil Armstrong
in sight of the moon
as if he could make the cone pulse
in the milky sky.
        -- Amy Bonomi