Tonight's Poet Corner: Valley Of The Roses

Valley Of The Roses
by Belinda Roddie

Across the street from the valley of the roses,
I see the oil well pump yield to the wind,
an obedient Trojan horse dipping its snout
into the drinking pool, legs bucking against
the browned midnight sky.

Ahead of me, headlights wash over
a woman in red, who's walking too fast
for me to really see if she's a mother,
a daughter, a sister, a wife. On the way home,
I pass a man compulsively patting the same
side of his head, either trying to tuck something
back into place, or to knock something
unwanted away.

The suburban sprawl is shallow, and
insignificant, but the paper memories
are all I have to offer, and I crumple them
into meaty wads to toss out my window
onto the dead lawn below, where the dogs
chew up Mother Nature's robes and the stars
are hidden within a hostile and lonely smog.