Odd for a dying town
to maybe be saved by
the Art People
but there it is.
A few old mills
became galleries.
A few odd sculptures
decorate empty lots.
A few odd people
stuck around to help
the new odd people.
It’s a strange place
for a city person to visit.
Somehow there’s no litter anywhere.
And you don’t really need
to look left and right
at any intersection.
Well, ok, once in a while
there’s another car
or a candy wrapper,
but mostly it’s so.
A delicate balance of
loss and prospect.
The natives mostly
drifted away
but a few with either
hope or inertia
found small jobs on the
edge of art
and spend the rest of the time
smoking on their front steps.
The downtown
looks like it might make it.
Any empty window has
art in place of dark
and who knows
the floors might even be
littered with poetry.
