Union Town

UNION TOWN / Matthew Graham I must have been sleeping it off in the car When fall caught up with the hills Outside of town and streaked them in lines Of color I took at first To be the veins of dug out coal. In town though, it was warm As we drove past the playground Of the deaf and dumb school and I turned up The radio until the lyrics Of a country and western song embarrassed us. Maybe it was the promise of some safe time Together, burning like an old matinee, That made us uncomfortable. So you showed me Around the town where once a lot happened to you And I understood its easy repetitions To be something as familiar to come back to As another day of work. A town of fire sales and bad restaurants Where the retired people all looked a little proud Of the grey weather, the dead river, the sad zoo. A town I could have grown up in and so I wanted To share your urgent affections. I wanted To hold you the way you wanted to hold on To a trace of something in your life That couldn't change. My hangover wore off in a hotel by the highway And left me nervous. All that night I heard traffic passing Like the fall coming up behind us. I felt its cold closing in, moving the burnt air Under train trestles, and changing Everything in its way. The Missouri Review · 17 ...