There are still dirt driveways
in our fair city,
and when it rains these
driveways turn to mud.

Just beyond the parts where
drunk twenty-somethings
climb in to their girlfriend’s cars
to drive past twenty-five shops
that they’ve never seen, only
heard of, there are Dead Tracks.

Foundry coke liters the lines,
the detritus of the pinnacles of
modern achievement
fifty years ago. Meanwhile,
all-but abandoned, mostly-
forgotten two-story buildings
set a frame for unused, overgrown
infrastructure to cut through.

I felt like an Aberration,
ghosting through the unused
parts and counting railroad ties.
Kicking the coke and rubbing
my chilled hands together.
Setting a pace over uneven ground.
Breathing deep the decay of
seemingly ancient modernization.

There are still dirt driveways
in our fair city,
and when it rains these
driveways turn to mud.
I shudder to think
what happens to
the rest of it.