Abel’s Unsettled Nostalgia
When he turned out the lamp in his house
There was nothing but the gun lights so bright
You could see them ten miles west in Valdese.
He’d sit on a chair and watch Mountain View
Beyond the Romanian vampires
On the east slope in their mini-mansions,
Dark corpuscle of 127,
Pickup trucks and SUVs driving down
Toward the shallow Jacob Fork River,
Meandering by the Huffman hog farm
And the Huffman recreation center
Where his kids had once played little league ball,
Games he was sometimes fool enough to coach.
He ruminated over his mistakes
In games that played endless in his nightmares.
He wanted baseball but his kids moved on
To track and soccer, and then cross country.
