digesting man

flags hung for passing trains to see

beside dirty laundry and drawn blinds,

hording all the air of summer

as women walk the streets in smocks

and turtles perch on rocks

to watch the roofs rust up

like washer machines in pick-up trucks

and an old cement shop

with a Coke machine,

wheel ruts leading off into the swamp

alongside train tracks

and power lines -

wilderness has come

devouring whole buildings

and digesting man.