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.