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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