Heartland Road Trip

Urban Decay

So many sad,
inconsequential towns,
corpses that don’t
understand they’re dead,
stumbling onward
like mystified zombies
who can’t quite remember
the taste of blood.
Every so often, they
try to reinvent themselves,
always failing.
Only Jesus could
resurrect these cemeteries,
filled with diminished,
left behind populations.
Any reason for life
has passed them by.
The march of progress
has trampled them.
Only fading momentum
keeps them going.
Sons and daughters
flee to the coasts.
Retirement communities
are going concerns.
They gasp along,
sputtering in despair,
crumbling, forgotten,
devoid of hope,
disappearing slowly
into nowhere.