“America”

Jay Casey

Angel on Box © Peter Vahlersvik

“Is this what I think it is?”

“I’m hoping it ain’t.”

The tottering old cemetery
On small, soggy bluffs
To either side of America Street

Helter-skelter cement company’s dream
With scratched-on names
Mother and Daughter, broken slab
Jagged Take Thy Rest
Ragged Gone But Not Forgotten
Inlaid bathroom tile porcelain mosaic

Crammed together
Gapping open or boarded up
Rusted tin covering
Like the rows of shotgun cabins
In the neighborhood adjoining
A weigh station, only more symmetrical

Uncovered glass treasures
In the side drainage ditch
Familiar short soft drink bottles
Face cream
Liquor corked and unscrewed
Broken and scattered

An old black man
Working out of an old black car
Fighting and losing against grass and weeds
Snake holes, faded flowers, rotting trees

Red spray paint I Love (heart) You
Dripping on top side of cover
Faded, white-washed angel
Barely discernible
Carrying, is it a child? On High
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Jay Casey is a writer and teacher who lives on the Gulf Coast. He is inspired by the history that is around each of us and the ways that history offers connections between the people of the past and the present.