On The Edge of Mt. Pleasant
By Dean Martineau

Waiting for the Mexican cook
Antonio
In front of the foreclosed house
On the edge of Mt. Pleasant
The white-winged thrushes
Chasing each other
through wire chain link fences
Junk trees
a “birds and the bees” reality show
The jumbled street back-dropped with thumping SUV’s
The kids even here in this neighborhood ride skateboards;
Dogs bark incessantly…
The Whippoorwill Whippoorwills
And Robins and Grackles grackle
A Wisteria some dead Italian immigrant planted in 1952
Wafts its heady Purple musk
The satellite TV truck
is parked sideways
Across the busted driveway
In front of the vinyl sided tenement that has
5 satellite dishes along its edge

Empty cases of
Corona and long neck Budweiser
The rims of each
Japanese vehicle glisten
In the afterglow
of late afternoon sunlight
The twisted metal Venetian blinds
On the third floor attic windows
Seem sad like half a smile
on Saturday night
Someone is blowing a horn
Someone else is sitting
on a peeling porch
Everyone is telling me
all they want is a job
“This country no good no more…
No jobs no more…”
I am the sore thumb
in this neighborhood
I am waiting for the Mexican
Antonio