In the town that lost its daughters

In the town that lost its daughters

to a single blast, the boys grow up 

with no one to kiss them out of their iron

ideas and back into the velvet touch of the living

room couch. Naturally they will kill

each other in a later act. No one plays

with the dolls and stuffy's and lovey's

so the dolls and stuffy's and lovey's

are not played with, and, seeing this

to be so, bank the latent glow

behind their painted lids and recede

back into plastic, and the trees, seeing this, know 

that the animus has left the place 

and stop whispering their pine-scented secret

to Saturday afternoons and the crow 

and the occasional pair of pigtails that used to listen in

and giggle at their pluck, now embarking 

on their return to inanimate exchange

of sunlight, water, and a sugar

you've read about but can't taste.

The roads are repaved remarkably

straight, what with everyone knowing

where they’re going and no one not knowing

enough as to ride so slowly on their bikes

that they have to wobble every which-way 

to stay upright. Pink fades from the pallet 

followed by purple and the softer shades

of yellow; sunrise becomes so harsh a white

no one wants to see it. Dandelions and daisies

and every flower bursting on every bush 

do not get picked but so stubbornly insist

still on miracle as to send their seed

to every whisper or whipping or weeping

wind, like the town of daughters

who vanished before their period 

and now carry on and on and on