Brownfields (The Revolution Begins At Home)

Brownfields,
old factories:
this town has plenty,
like pockmarks.

I drive away from my house.
I won’t get out of the car. I just want to stare.
I want to imagine breaking in and beginning.
It wouldn’t take more than all my blood and treasure

to take an abandoned firehouse,
skin everything out, leave the pole.
Put a rebellion in the bays
where the trucks used to sit.

Charge anyone
who drives to see it,
but the walk-up traffic
gets in free.

Inspired,
clear at last,
I park the car in
a vacant lot.

Walking now with other
abandoned persons
who all walked away
from a house somewhere.

There’s
an ocean
in front of us,
a boat waiting. But

there’s so much to do
right here in our brownfields
that we don’t need to go
anywhere else.