Ghost Town

a poem about capitalism, among other things

I

The raspberries have lasted into November this year. There they stand, betwixt yellowing leaves and barren twigs, atop a carpet of russet and saffron decay, immersed in the chillingly fresh autumn air, a ghost town of berries clamoring to be the first in months to meet live flesh.

II

It’s November, and the raspberries last, but the children are long gone, bundled up and hurried off to the school bus like wayward sheep. This neighborhood is a ghost town now, deprived of gloriously shining laughter and the bright-red pitter-patter of little feet. These are replaced by the conversational chirps of five different species of birds, high, high up in the fading trees, speaking, finally, without fear of human disturbance.

III

This neighborhood is a ghost town now, excitement of the summertime harvest long gone despite the patient presence of fresh raspberries. Only the adults remain, the poet and the gardener, living spectres, forgotten youth. The scribe on the bench waxes poetic about the desperation of November raspberries, unremembering; his fascination with this vivacious fuschia, a reflection of his own inhuman desire for the joy of childhood.

IV.

A fuschia-doused vivacity of plump berries comes tumbling down from the yellowing bush, only to be caught by a softly shaking hand, keeping the sweetest ones in his left palm, (for the right one still holds a pen), and lifts them up above the dying leaves, up above the brittle sticks, up up up to meet cold pink flesh against cold pink flesh, to cartwheel across the blushing tongue and down between the garden beds, to spin on the axis of the earth and play leapfrog with the shifting sun, to grow warm in the throat of a rememoried youth, to be the only two things alive in this ghostly town.