Michigan, Warmed
Islands of garbage
float across the ocean
They fester and reek
No ice in the world anymore
The only ice is in the dirty martini
I drink in the backyard
of my tropical Michigan paradise
My son is coming later to plant some
more
palm trees
No corn anymore
no soybeans
Granddad would have been surprised to
see my sugar cane crop
the sweet smelling tassles
flowing in the breeze
I told him I’d never live here
I was pissed off, feeling confined by
family farming
I wanted something bigger
greater
more life
No streets out here in the country
dirt roads
dirt and gravel
I’m done with drugs, Grandad
I know I broke your heart
but that’s what hearts are for
If you’d come from a city
you would have known that
Islands of garbage float across the ocean
They fester, reek
and the salmon and trout in Lake
Michigan
have given way to
evil little fish that stowed away on
river freighters
and came up from Chicago
riff raff with the blues
Doesn’t matter to me
I sold my boat long ago
I lay out in the backyard working on my
tan
and watch the
palm fronds sway in the breeze
Fruit rats in the sapodilla trees jump
from
branch to branch
If only Grandad could see them!
He’d laugh
The old, mean wasps are still here
Sometimes one stings me in the face
but that hardly disturbs me
drinking my dirty martinis
in my tropical Michigan paradise
--Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois
No comments:
Post a Comment