Adriana DiGennaro

This Town

 

there’s a running competition
between me and this town

 

it thinks it’s tougher

 

it shows me weekend nights
lit by the hair of
blond girls

 

tries to scare me with
shrill laughter of
young strangers
gawking at all they don’t know

 

allows black cars
with dangerous-looking spoilers
and ruby taillights
to blow past me
bumping bass

 

this town thinks it’s a garden
budding greatness, future pop star girls
and rapper guys generating heat
in the seaside soil

 

local youth in all their glory
mirroring
the mediocre middle aged
eating ice cream in the place
they’ve been all their lives

 

this town,
a beat-up box of stagnancy
a gaggle of living buoys docked
in their maritime village
from which I have detached
and won