how it ends

a strip mall wasteland, what gets built breaks down again,
the weeds find weakness in the pavement
a sign says “see you in the spring,”
but it doesn’t look to me like they’ll be opening again,
    all the way from Canton to Butler
    waiting at the stoplights, I’m half-sure
    that this is how, that this is how it ends..

down in Millvale at the going-out-of-business sale
I bought a calculator & some blue pens,
the flood was too much so the old man hung it up,
& now he’s selling 40 years of odds & ends,
    I asked him if he’ll fix things at home now, he said
    “not if I can help it,” blue eyes washed out,
    he lit a cigarette..
      everyone’s from somewhere, maybe you were born there,
      and everybody knew you, knew the ones before,
      pictures in the windows, the usual mementos,
      it’s on the tip of your tongue, waiting there to be sung:

home, call it home, where we’re almost alone,
all my migrants and ghosts leave the holes I love most,
they’re at home..

by the boomtowns all the chain stores come around
to replicate their retail DNA,
it’s just the same stores, there’s a Target® by the Boston Market®,
or there’s a Wal-Mart® by the Chick-fil-A®,
    and here beyond the reach of the upsurge,
    for everything that’s local a slow dirge plays,
    it’s just we watch it, as we watch it fade,
      everyone’s from somewhere, maybe you were born there,
      and everybody knew you, knew the ones before,
      pictures in the windows, the usual mementos,
      it’s on the tip of your tongue, waiting there to be sung:

home, call it home, where we’re almost alone,
all my migrants and ghosts leave the holes I love most
they’re at home.. where we’re almost alone,
    all the way from Burrell to Freeport,
    waiting at the stoplights, I’m half-sure
    that this is how, that this is how it ends,

a strip mall wasteland,
what gets built breaks down again,
the weeds find weakness in the pavement…