Subsidence

It’s not the end of the world, fallout covering homeowners in the housing plan built over long-closed mines, firestorms and shock-waves making refugees of survivors. It’s not a cancer cluster among families measuring themselves by mortgages that outlive them. It’s not an apocalypse, the cinderblock cracked where corners of their houses keel over like drunks. It’s my father inside the fire hall huddled with his neighbors. It’s his hands
straightening the map where his modest street shows so large he believes it’s a river. It’s closed-circuit news, my watching when he walks his hallway, measuring slope with his body, leaning.

Photo Credit: texturepalace