Town Skirts

The girl with the fake nails places her change on the counter,
moves out the two pennies and aligns the dimes like twins.
Give her what she has desired. Send her out into the cold night.
These streets bear the brunt of the sadness. Our discontents
hurtling round dark curves, the worried creases of map
hastily drawn by a hand that barely knew its own home.
It’s the green house on the hill. The one whose children grew up
hearing whistles of trains, and walked the sharp grade to
the trestle to see their own hearts flying fast right underneath
them, at a speed that makes the dandelion the color of sun
and the blue that rolls on in the back of the mouth
when a beautiful song is done.