Suburban Ruins

…In the country
by a creek they walk
as often                     on a paved road

Penelopeya 
         Hehrmess 
                                 and their little boy
                                                                    Ahgreyeuss

He scrambles
over the banks
pointing out frogs and sticks
insects under logs

He becomes alone
where the stream runs straighter
to the suburbs
through the rip-wrap
wire
bars and
broken blocks

Then flowing
across the cracked
cement searching rushes
and pools

finding goldfish in the confusion
of human wild 
                               shopping carts
                           cattails
                                riffles
                                          bathtubs

It is a meaningful wasteland
of percolation

filling his pockets
                   with foot-long pollywogs
             painted turtles