Dark Matter

On Gardner Street the cobblestones
no longer hide under asphalt.  It’s an
axle-breaker road, used by some

to cut from Main South
to a faster route to downtown, 
one not as direct but with 

fewer obstacles once you get past
the hard historic rumble
of Gardner Street.

Even though driving down Main Street 
offers a straight shot it’s never been easy
to get to our shiny downtown from Main South,

even before the rebuild,
the driving out of the old tenants,
the tear down of the old church,

the ripping of old fabric in favor of something
artisanal and pure and much more 
wholesomely rough;

if they haven’t
paved a condo courtyard down there 
with vintage cobblestones yet,

they will. 

Back on Gardner Street,
right near
the new Boys and Girls Club

(located off of what they used to call
Kilby Street
until someone decided

that name
reminded too many
of who ran the corners there;

GPS still calls it Kilby Street
though all the signs
are down and trashed)

drivers not already
in the know
keep slamming into

that open pit of exposed cobblestones
and either brake hard
or break down hard.

Townies know better. They know
what’s under
every shiny new surface. They

know what will render
your shiny ride useless.
Know what it means

to be shined on. Know
what their streets 
used to hold. Know

real people live on Gardner Street
and they don’t always 
just pass through.

Until they fear you
as much as they make you fear them,
they will not feel you at all,

will not feel you as human
until you fell a few so they can see
you are as capable of mayhem as they are.

This is a blasphemy, you say?
A spiral down to their level?
You can’t be serious.

Once they were as you.
Once they understood. They did not
come to this on their own: they were

guided to it. Do not forget that
even as you tear into them
and teach them to fear.

They see you as insects,
pests, vermin;  you must see them as
human, even as you strike them;

only if you feel no pain 
at having to do as they have done
will you join them at their level.

Did you ever imagine anything
could creep up on you
as this time has done?
Or did you expect it,

as many of us have,
understanding how the original gods 
of this land were stripped
of honor and turned into

marketing tools and silly icons
for the Colony to use
as it saw fit? Those
shocked by the soul insult

of that revelation, step back;
there are so many here
who watched the rising and,
knowing what was to come,

built their lives under armor
and raised children so wary
of the future they believe 
it may kill them early — 

and if it does not, 
their lives will be hard
but filled to the rim 
with moments of tough beauty

and bounty formed of luck
and grit in iron bond.
Your continued shock is insulting.
Your paralysis is not surprising.

Those who know old gods
know they do not die.
That you didn’t know this
tells us who may survive.