Woodview Avenue 1960

[TranquillityBase]

Walking the cooling asphalt at twilight
there’s no mistaking our sins
misleading us into a summer night
with rumors of an escaped mental patient
who scratches at our screens with a butcher knife.

Behind a jumble of decrepit rabbit hutches
a root-wrecked wall in our backyard
protects us from spies creeping down the hillside.
The tree snake climbing through the cedar
offers no promises of knowledge or power.

We’ve always lived here, no neighbors
to know us for what we are.  We listen
to the country and western songs of distant radios, 
and watch dancing static on a black and white TV,
imagining its patterns will tell us when it’s time:

time to flee or make a final stand
or to burn a grandmother’s tattered Bible
just to see the flames.  This is home,
but its history rejects us, disbelieving liars,
for the pain of return, luring our street away.

There’s no mistaking our sins
walking the cooling asphalt at twilight
misleading us into a summer night
with rumors of an escaped madman
who scratches at our screens with a butcher knife.

Behind a jumble of decrepit rabbit hutches
a root wrecked wall in our backyard
protects us from secrets sliding down the hillside.
The snake climbing through the trees
offers no promises of knowledge or power.

We’ve always lived here, no neighbors
to know us for what we are.  We listen
to the sounds of distant radios, and watch
dancing static on a black and white TV,
imagining its patterns will tell us when it’s time:

time to flee or make a final stand
or to burn a grandmother’s tattered Bible
just to see the flames.  This is home,
but its history rejects us, disbelieving liars,
for the pain of return, luring our street away forever.