A town, turning. 

Recycled corners flip to busy streets,

frame shiny cars queued before red lights, 

tastebuds dry for Friday-night cuisine,

a paycheck celebration—

and another door, cardboarded

 

For Rent.

Local windows watch, hollowed.

Make room for more elite. 

 

Highbrows excavate 

cornrows of worn books—

convenience stores, gifted from father to son—

a shoemaker’s countertop, dusted—

he lived upstairs, once.

 

Windows see and have seen, 

polished for the turning. 

Scrubbed of local fingerprints

that pressed from the inside. 

A generation’s farewell.

 

Visitors peer in, anxious waiting.

What will lift these gleaming floors?