Field Notes w/ Stripped Trailer
       

Not burned, not fire, but fire's recourse—
              its appetite. The 2x4 & 4x4 frame
discernible as a skeleton. An American-
              built trailer, good sized, double wide,
out away from city lights. The sun moves
              toward a low, pink throb. . .

Isn't this how we've defined our rise
              to knowing man? By what's missing from
our structure, by what's missing from this
              structure? Shadow twist & twilight
begin to color the frame more completely
              abandoned. This ruin kept secrets. . .

Inside is nothing, is bare board & dead wire,
              porcelain artifacts of indoor plumbing:
commode & kitchen sink. Desert
              grasses grow through what's left of peeling
linoleum, beer can & plastic bag & wait,
              inside: a flap of wing, of real, live crow

scavenging these bones for some shining usefulness.
              Wheels gone, siding, walls—everything that
was "home" misinterpreted as "mobile."
              Hope for some deliberate scratch, some
less-than-ancient graffiti to shed light on
              previous inhabitants: TF♥DT, Pancho was here,

a crude-painted Wal-Mart—jagged spears, parking lot,
              something of the modern hunt & gather—
anything to connect us to homo-mobilehomus,
              homo-apartementus, homo-surburbamente.
But because red blood is only tangential,
              some percentage of birth & gravity intended

to end abandonment, let fire fill the ruined.
              It's easy enough, it's a book of matches:
primeval brace against the dark,
              smolder & spark.

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Copyright © 2021 Carl Marcum All rights reserved
from A Camera Obscura
Red Hen Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission