I see the old man's blue blood lips, hear his tank tick, tick tick like a slow heartbeat faking its way through veins. Oxygen from a hippie purse hanging from his shoulder giving his life, life. He should be dead by now. His eyes cut through nothing,  just bounce off everything. Everything he looks at remind him of aliens. How they walk and talk and suck us in their perceptions. I am lost now and glad to be.

A strand of grass pokes its head through the dirt under the sycamore tree.

Shirley's yard is overgrown with weeds exactly waist high. Her house is gone. her rose bushes seem naked leaning against nothing, their thorns searching for something to snag. Under the apple tree I set the blade of my shovel angled against the ground and push. Clumps of purple peony root snap and fall, they are mine now. Shirley would be proud because she wanted me to have them.

Even the little boys wear camo. It is the colors of mud and blood and hard, sweaty work. Our boys grow up to be men with families. They are farmers and hunters. They drink beer sitting on tail gates, a field dressed deer at their elbow. Their laughter is hard and real and earned.

Farmer Bob is coming for his hay today. One trip, two. Three trips, four. Turkey vultures wait nearby because at least one rabbit won't make it out.

Matt leans into the pointy edges of his chained link fence, making deep dents in the under-flesh of his forearm. He takes long, deep drags from his cigarette. As those who gossip with you gossip about you, he talks about fees paid by whom, stray dogs and running away from this place. Gay slang is his forte but he sits on his front stoop alone save an occasional male visitor from far away.

Blake lives in the house next to the church. Blake drinks beer so now he has to move.

Tiffany's mother squeezes her eyes shut when she talks to me. Sometimes I want to walk away just to see how long will it take to notice I'm gone. She is a talking tree with words less important to me. wah wah wah.

The lady in the crooked house mows her lawn and pretends her house doesn't lean further to the left than most of our neighbor's political beliefs. The straight-up trees it protrudes between doesn't exagerate. She plants flowers in a row, hoping no one notices. But I always do.

And Angela wears a bikini for three days straitght. Again. It would seems more appropiate if she had a pool. But she doesn't have a pool, just a gimpy body, a frown and more kids than I can count.

So I drive down the street under a canopy of trees that never quite meet, they just hold hands and say, "com'on home."

My town is backwards but we welcome you all the same.