What's Left

Took a drive around the neighborhood,
I think it was Thursday.
I found no more milk containers on stoops,
no newspapers in driveways,
but foundations of homes
and a broken alabaster lion—
fragments of Greenlawn Avenue
a couple of streets away.

Every time I drive around
a dozen more houses are gone.
A year’s time will pass
and the rest will be bought out,
bulldozed over,
and left to decay and collect graffiti
and idle brown-bag passersby—
a neighborhood full of ruffians
that drift around Winslow Park
where kids used to ride their bikes
and recreational leagues prized the fields
as location for softball and soccer.

I suppose the Airport will take
my street, my house,
Jessica’s, and Dustin’s,
and soon,
the whole neighborhood.

Some would say
it’s probably for the better—
despite the noise, the jet fuel pollutants,
and increased traffic.
But I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else—
an eighth of a mile
from that runway.