Chain-smoking groceries are built,
flower store owners choke their hands.
Countertops indent the clerk’s clothes,
muscles wrinkle her six dollar guilt.
Teachers forget to water classroom plants.

Drivers shout fuck at closed windows.
Birds clench and crowd wires, more perch.
Salted butter gets mad and melts itself.
Sons grow to sweep floors, dust shelves.
Their tables wage war with peas and forks.

Hair and nails persist in cemeteries
while the lawns are manicured.
Past Dixie’s Workout, past trail-clumped leaves

Tommy wrecks his bike, its spokes rust.
Where kids make mudballs spiked with nails
to defend from invasions across the creek.