Invitation to the Author from the City of 1967 Detroit
Paul David Adkins
Don’t you feel sick right now?
Don’t you smell the city, once burned
like the wick of a spent candle?
Don’t you wish you visited somewhere near the wellsprings?
I remember once, you were afraid.
Or twice. Try fear
for breakfast, Sunday lunch
stiff and black as bread
burned to the point
of bursting the toaster, charring the chrome
with the ash and heat of a Detroit summer.
You, useless as a slit hose,
hydrant severed from a main.
What is it you want? We don’t have it.
Snipped flower, snowflake in hell,
single tear stalled on a wrinkle.
Your spirit hangs on a line,
dingy sheet, snapping like fingers to a Motown song,
that rhythm you can’t quite catch,
always off a beat.
It’s been 50 years, you little boy iced by the piss in your pants.
Come in.
Paul David Adkins lives in NY. He served in the US Army from 1991-2013. Most recently, he earned a MA in Writing and The Oral Tradition from The Graduate Institute, Bethany, CT. He spends his days either counseling soldiers or teaching college students in a NY state correctional institute.