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asking about my
    hair, diamond studs on either side of her lip pinning her smile. This exam
    table. This white sheet below my waist. This white sheet reeking of bleach.
    Your wisecracking Resident. Your overly-friendly Resident. Your Resident
    making me anonymous. Your Resident making me ashamed. I will show
    you, Resident, the one corner of Detroit where the houses love me, my sheen,
    since I am as cavernous, as broke-down. Where the houses don’t talk back or
    ask how the procedure went. The vast territory of my ovaries on screen, their
    black holes, their stellar mass. The whole solar system is bursting, splintering,
    flaring, and I am not. Planets spin on their axes and people are launched into
    space. I am the territory no one will inhabit. The borderlands of
motherhood
    and
not again
. Want has no business here.

G HOSTBOX

    The first time we went, we forgot
    a flashlight. This was outside
    Detroit so there was ample
    parking. Acres of steel arms
    that herded shopping carts in
    for pep talks—their rails stood
    quiet, parallel, signaling the end
    of the diaspora. Never mind
    the under-performing automatic
    doors. They surrendered first,
    hugged themselves shut. We
    went back and stood on the roof
    of a car to watch the building
    smolder. In one account, we
    heard gun-shots but didn’t
    drive off. In another, we met a
    coyote, and a red fox when the
    sun came up. There was ample
    parking. It’s worth repeating.
    And the distance. The distance
    was unrazed, dusted, fenced,
    tagged, shuttered. The distance,
    most of all, was unlit.

I N/EXHAUSTIBLE

    Martinsville, VA

    The billboards into town advertise Southern Gun
    & Pawn, Slot Cars, say Everyone’s Preapproved!
    Best Deal on a Home, Period—the prefabs that come

    in halves on the back of trucks labeled WIDE LOAD,
    and this was a manufacturing town, until the factories
    closed up shop, the warehouses turned to churches

    with food pantries, roadways littered with signs:
    Are Your Bills Crippling You? Psalm 75:1. Ferguson
    Tire: We Buy Gold, then Welcome to Martinsville—

    A City Without Limits says the sign on the road in,
    and there behind the rows of shotgun houses, a dye plant,
    abandoned, two mottled smokestacks rising like goalposts,

    no longer pumping out anything of worth near the sign
    that says Bankruptcy Could Be Your Solution (All Welcome),
    the sign that says We Love You Pastor. Get Well Soon.

    The sign says Cash for Old Broken Jewelry, and this
    is a town where everyone’s broke or gone. It is
    Christmastime in Martinsville, and Santa in his red robes,

    in his Shriner’s hat, stands regal and fat in the darkened
    consignment store. Molded sheep rest on cotton batting
    near a nest made from hay. The faded wise men kneel

    with hands clasped, gazing at that baby with outstretched arms.
    In another window, lit-up swaying snowmen share a hymnal,
    and the plastic baby rests among doves, nestled by a lady

    in blue robes with her head bowed. This is a city
    of supplication, of duct-taped and empty storefronts,
    of faded holiday ornaments, where downtown businesses

    only open three days a week—a city that left its smokestacks
    raised in prayer to the signs, and the sign says Highest Prices
    Paid in Cash, says HUGE Furniture & Mattress Sale.

    Some billboards quote a politician: “Attracting New Jobs”
    but the local radio talk show has callers buzzing, all asking
    the same question:
when is our train gonna come in when

    is our train comin in where is that train
and can you hear it
    in the peeling storefronts, the empty storage facilities,
    the degree completion joints? The walk-ins welcome,

    the spider-webbed glass, the abandoned call centers?
    People speak of your wonderful deeds. The plastic families
    wear wire halos, and fold their arms to wait and wait.

    Someone will bring work. The smokestacks
    are out of breath. The sign at Lays It Away
    says Happy Thanksgiving to All and God Bless.

A LL T HAT B LUE F