Disaster Is in the Eye of the Beholder

I used to live in a single-

wide, tilted on blocks

in a dusty trailer park,

or as the sign said

to trucks that rumbled by,

a much more respectable

Mobile Home Court.

Thin pressboard panels

hid a million roachy lives:

turning on the lights

sent them fleeing, back

into the walls; tiny

feet pattered like rain

showers in retreat

from the sun.

I used to dream

of a terrible storm—

one to reach down

with a dark, twisted arm

and pick up those trailers,

those non-mobile un-homes,

crush them in a cloudy fist

and scatter them like seeds

across a plowed and fertile land.

Source: Poetry (February 2021)