Landscape Without You
By Cate Marvin
Roofers scrape the scaly lid
of an auto shop beside the house
where I live. Where I live
shirtless men tear at the black
scabs of a roof's old flesh, toss
scraps into the back of a truck
parked in the lot next to a house
where I live. Where I live
a tarp rattles at night, plastic
rustles, and trash is kicked along
pavement by wind. Roofers
curse and shell the tire shop's
peeling lid beside the house
where I live. Where I live
a tarp shakes all night; cans
land on pavement, tossed from
windows of cars that blur by
where I live. Where I live
windows are ladled red with
light your sun leaves me with.
Repairs are made to roofs which
will never cover me. As I read
the road between us, tire tracks
unscroll their tawdry calligraphy.
Any day now you shall arrive, roar
into my eye with your mountainside.
Where I live when I live where
landscape cannot survive you.
Copyright Credit: Cate Marvin, "Landscape Without You" from World’s Tallest Disaster. Copyright © 2001 by Cate Marvin. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books, Inc., www.sarabandebooks.org.
Source: World's Tallest Disaster (Sarabande Books, 2001)