end-time monopoly
the razed area is a lengthy walk
from the short line, stretching from
saint charles place to the pennsy station.
we can journey there if you’d like,
tread the circles i have made, rummage
through the piles of scrap. i would caution
you, however, to restrain your hopes: we
will not uncover trinkets of value, or discover
objects my family abandoned. i assure you, i have
searched. a thimble, clothes iron, rumpled boot: such
trivial fragments are all that remain where a row of
slumping houses once leaned upon each other.
every hour the dark trains had grumbled past the
tarnished windows and stoops, gravid with
passengers in top hats: men of fortune, who, although
aware of the imminent approach of the endmost depot,
continued to birth plans for attractive views, sturdy
erections with high returns: the demolition of jagged houses.
by Heather Dearmon
