Inexplicable Disappearances An upstart new town is choking the old town tucked within it, the town my elders once seeded, my parents, old friends, the lady who stuffed dollar bills in her mattress, owned a monkey who could paint roses…well, on a good day. We swayed in our penny loafers and our jangling charm bracelets, hoped Elvis would love us one day  in this town of one stoplight, one Feed & Seed store, and two  one-pump gas stations where nobody had seen a Jew or a Catholic, except we knew one had killed Jesus and the other worshiped his mother. This show-off new town pretends it's still my same town, but a ghost  with a sax wanders down main street.  As he blows out his blues tune  a long line of bright glowing spirits  and their sweet bare-footed memories  fall into that fast-moving slip stream  of time eddying behind him. They sing hymns of praise, place hands over their noses and are gone before I can toss out a lasso to save them. Pris Campbell ©2007 Published in The Dead Mule  2006 Photograph: Archives Return to Poetry Index II Return to Homepage