Unnamed Town, ME

Summer Tate

In this small-town portrait, you may not see these little figures scooting across the

tapestry. One with a twisted foot, a heap of frail bones set atop a rusting wheelchair in 

the middle of the motor lodge lobby. Where you can also rent out a cabin as dark as a 

cave. The frame may hide a brother in the back room, too old to be watching cartoons 

and eating cereal out of a banged-up metal mixing bowl with warm day-old milk and a

soup spoon. As he laughs milk dribbles down his double chin stuck in a third-grade state

of mind. In this town you wonder why there are no birds in the yellowing sky, filling the

trees with their chatter about this town. Cats prowl, over populating trash bins and alley ways with no owners to cut their claws. Those cats trill on about the boisterous pool

halls that throw out already cleaned chicken bones with the gristle removed, broke open and sucked dry. Cooked in weeks old fry oil by a man they call “Cookie” who has never

left this town just like his daddy; and he remembers when the picture show costed a

quarter. In this town, history sits on the front porch and watches time visit in search of a gift shop that has not yet been built.