Poem of the Week, by Thomas Lux

From The Neighborhood of Make-Believe

- Thomas Lux

It is elsewhere, elsewhere, the neighborhood you seek.

The neighborhood you long for,

where the gentle trolley –ding, ding– passes

through, where the adults are kind

and, better, sane,

that neighborhood is gone, no, never

existed, though it should have

and had a chance once

in the hearts of women, men (farmers dreamed

this place, and teachers, book writers, oh thousands

of workers, mothers prayed for it, hunchbacks,

nurses, blind men, maybe most of all soldiers,

even a few generals, millions

through the millennia…), some of whom,

despite anvils on their chests,

despite taking blow after blow across shoulders and necks,

despite derision and scorn,

some of whom still, still

stand up everyday against ditches swollen with blood,

against ignorance, still dreaming,

full-fledged adults, still fighting,

trying to build a door to that place,

trying to pry open the ugly,

bullet-pocked, and swollen gate

to the other side,

the neighborhood of make-believe.

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For more information on Thomas Lux, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-lux

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