Ode on a Fragment of an Urn by Dawn McGuire


 
 
I didn’t know I’d love that little town

Vinyl siding, trailer park, O bright

blue propane tanks, lotto tickets

blow against the fence, hair

nests in the drainage grates

And look! After last night’s surprise

frost the clothes on the line are stiff

as a page, and the Goddess is walking

naked while her jumper warms up

Even a cheap town has lyric

But every day equations figure into it

more and more, and once X tweets and Y

alt-tweets, the whole little town gets anxious

and Aunt Madge is back on the Oxycontin

and something weak and tired in me

just wants to steal
 
 
 
Dawn McGuire has four published collections, including The Aphasia Café, winner of the 2013 Indie Book Award for Poetry. Her latest book, American Dream with Exit Wound (2017), is a Small Press Distribution best seller. She was raised in Appalachian Eastern KY, and is on the faculty of Morehouse School of Medicine.