Plain paper wrappings
of mornings in the suburbs
Where we have lived our lives out
Like incandescent light bulbs
Hanging in the lighting fixtures

Plain wallpaper
Painting the walls
In the rooms of our apartments
Where we sit and wait

The empty houses
The empty houses on the blocks
The empty houses on the blocks of streets
The backyards behind the empty houses

Conversations
Recorded on the answering machines
In the empty houses,
Television melodramas
Raising the roofs
Of the empty houses
Beneath the empty skies
Lit by street lights

The empty churches
On the street corners
Casting their pointed shadows
Across the sidewalks
And the streets leading to the shopping centers

The advertisements In the newspapers
That advertise the shopping centers,
The commercials on the radios
We listen to in the cars
We ride in
On our way to the shopping centers,
The plain paper wrappings
Of the fast food we eat
When we get there,
The empty coffee cups we throw into the waste baskets
In the parking lots in the shopping centers in
The commercially zoned real estate
In the middle of nowhere