the end of activity in natalb By: chad foret
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Natalbany is one town you don’t realize you’ve driven through, like the chill when a ghost borrows your body.
Sometimes a town rises over the hill like a dark comb for you to believe in & every wild animal
People get walked by wind & their dogs & there’s no land with everyone almost in robes & standing erect
around tries to crawl into your broken lap. You do handstands so birds might nest
pretending to know every sapling & insect they spot. There’s no passion quite like pest control, posing
among your sandals & glistening ankles. You never sit down except to seem more
in a yard without purpose until the paspalum starves. 2
like the strays eating from your soft hands. Statues have nothing to say except observe
The trains stop visiting & your heart collapses. The flashing signal lights faintly blemish your face
like an immortal man leaving his cave to see what taxonomy & train smoke have to do with
somehow even afterward. This of course is several years away & your hands still work like they have
a town being haunted by its own happiness.
all your life & no one’s passed through a parlor, seen you in an old photo & said with sad affection how handsome you were. You touch wisteria like rain stolen from a face that is just fine with it.
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