Hometown Drive

tonight’s memories:
an abandoned mansion;

broken, empty outskirts
of our fading town. 

we went there often, awash
in a storm surge of uneducated love;

so elegantly messy, so shabby 
by parental standards, lit by cheap candles

and our glow. there were shadows
we pretended were there to honor us,

returning to their former galleries and halls
to cheer us on. there were unexplained

sounds we claimed were music
from old weddings. when we loved

we rolled now and then into plaster dust
and came up laughing, pricked a bit

by larger chips and chunks, dusted naked
children, new ghosts ourselves.

it’s not there anymore. torn down 
for new homes, near-mansions,

well-lit blacktop, big driveways
for small cars.

love finds a home there for certain —
it can grow anywhere — for certain

some young scared couple’s
rolling in first love’s surf there somewhere,

maybe right where we did, but 
to try and plot it out

and see what’s been built
where we once were each other’s whole knowledge

of what love meant? no fool, here.
it wasn’t a place we were meant to live.