Dead Town
Buy Issue for $20 at JHUP- Dead Town
A dead town full of ghosts—it left behindits brick and mortar bones, the pharmacywindows dark with dust. Each day we findthe Bijoux Movie House’s bleached marqueeunchanged, and no one really seems to mind.7:00—The Day The Earth Stood Still.The seats stay empty since they closed the mill.
Instead, we haunt the Late-Nite A&P,the last place left to shop for Wonderbread,Del Monte peaches, and Chef Boyardee.We eat our dinners sitting up in bed.For company, the rabbit-eared TV.Infomercials fill the anxious quiet,the midnight mantra, Don’t believe us? Try it!
echoes through our rooms paid by the week.It drowns the sound of industry collapsing,the deafening crash of silence at its peak—no cars, no crowds, the old mill making nothing—the sound of losing purpose, so to speak.Our part-time days, like stories stretched too thin,cannot escape the were, and was, and when. [End Page 483]
CHAD ABUSHANAB’s poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, 32 Poems, Measure, Unsplendid, The Raintown Review, and others. He is a doctoral student of Literature and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University and is the poetry editor for Arcadia.
