there's a far end to every town
the fringe where plans and efforts and attentions decay
where our trash and exceptions collect into their own

on one such edge of one such town
sat a house hoarding its own history of neglect
the asbestos we didn't remove
the lead pipes we couldn't afford to replace

the gravity of life pulled that fringe and our attention
closer and closer to the town's nucleus
fusing our hot air and restless energy
into a dense, compressed, unstable core

more mass collected until its energy ran dry
the town fissured
exploding into a diaspora of orphaned cultures
sent to the outer orbits and gravities of new towns

we pray it leaves behind a municipal black hole
capturing light and rainwater and windswept pollen
new grass sprouting between the cracks in the concrete
one day, cracked concrete peeking through blankets of grass

but again, we've forgotten those first fringes
barely rippled by the town's supernova
kept by its gravity in distant, cold orbit
no future. only a frozen, interminable present

on that one edge of that one town
stands a shell of drywall and linoleum
centered in a disc of bare dirt
someone called it a house once
all such someones are generations gone

new grass and flowers press against the impenetrable dirt
spores and seed laying constant siege to the lifeless patch
the seeds almost never take root and
what small tufts grow are soon choked out to kindling

beneath the house husk
runs a system of hollow tree roots
once a mighty oak, its roots waged war against the house
now entangled in the lead pipes and drip fed a leak of poison

heavy metal laced sewage ate the roots from the inside out
leaving hollow carbon tentacles, a facsimile of bark
a network of tunnels bound around the pipes

these barkish tunnels both spread and stall the rot
the seeds that try and fail to root in the dirt void patch
wither and die and sink and stick to the tunnel shell
adding new layers that the toxic pipe water can't penetrate

perhaps the house and its barren patch
aren't truly dead
something's growing
growing bitter and refusing to be forgotten