My hometown was already a wreck by the
time I arrived. Nimishillen Creek ran
motor oil and sewer slops behind the
high school, and downtown disappeared in
smoke the day fathers lit their coal furnaces.
Deer and bluebirds were as rare as the
people who worried about the deer and
the bluebirds, and we hurled beer cans
onto the roadside like our heroes threw
hand grenades. We rode our motorbikes
up and down the slag heaps left us by
the strip miners who took their money
and moved as far away as they could afford
from the ruin that funded their move, and
there was joy everywhere in the conviction
that America went on forever and nothing
we could do would ever fill it up.
Surprise.
