Espaliered on a Wailing Wall

Farmland lacks immunity to the
toxin spread by the creeping edges
of the town. A fungus of junkyards,
beer joints, car washes, food stands,
neon flashes. A four-lane highway
spreads the contagion and no matter
how fast I run, my feet move
too slowly to rescue me from the
corrupt breath of car and truck exhaust.
In this hamburger world decorated
with plastic roses I dream of
clean clear streams and wooded hills,
and secret parks of nature where
a man could stand alone. I look
at a leaf, plastered to my driveway,
and see the perfect veins, the
serrated edges, proof of a pattern
shaped by an order of things with
no action by the city council.
I look at myself, honed by the
abrasive facts of progress instead
of growing out of my beginning
into the man I hoped for.