if you drive
into cleburne
from the south
the clocktower
rises up like
a pockmarked
brick erection

which is likely
the kindest
thing to be said
about the sleepy
town just outside
of the metroplex

you can already
see the rot
the flood of
cookie cutter
subdivisions
slowly eroding
the countryside away

one day that old
pecker will be
swallowed by the
encroaching city
made to look small
as if in a
perpetual chill
cast by the shadows
of unnecessary
concrete compensation

some men need to
have monuments
great phallic symbols
to prove to the
entire world
they mattered
to prove their
worth and virility

when i die
open my chest
and place an
apple seed
where my runaway
heart never
seemed to stay
let it take root
drain the last
vestiges of me
into a crooked tree

then serve those
fucking apples
to the people
you despise most
let them choke
on a lifetime
of bitter longing
on a fruit all rind

and one day
when contractors
come to bulldoze
the orchard
to make room for
the next row of
repetitive attempts
at temporary permanence
i will be swallowed
like an old clocktower
which looked like
a pockmarked cock by
the inevitability
of fucking time