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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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This used to be a street with a bakery.
\nHe had a vaudeville memory, it embarassed him to keep hunting
\nwhen he knew he’d only have to turn around and
\nwait for transport, defeated again.<\/p>\n
What progress was this? What ribbon cutting?
\nFor whose benefit were these gleaming facades
\nthat no one was ever seen entering?
\nThe more things cost, the fewer people actually had right to enjoy them,
\nor so it seemed.<\/p>\n
He was alone now.<\/p>\n
He used to work in an office. Not one of these metal and steel monoliths,
\nbut some things never changed. All offices have the usual temptations,
\nand he’d been caught indulging in his. First his wife left him, then his bosses
\nfound fault with him.<\/p>\n
That corner office was to blame for everything that followed.<\/p>\n
He lived in a closet-sized apartment over what used to be a music store.
\nThe store had been vacant for a year. Earlier that week, two younger men showed up –
\nthe new owners – making notes and measurements, introduced themselves.
\nShook his hand. He grimaced as he shut his door. It was written
\nall over their faces their intention was to turn him out
\nas soon as they began work in earnest on whatever they planned
\nfor the building. <\/p>\n
He knew what he had saved. He wouldn’t be sleeping in the park with Soapy. He shrugged. He didn’t make plans past mid-year, anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This used to be a street with a bakery. He had a vaudeville memory, it embarassed him to keep hunting when he knew he’d only have to turn around and wait for transport, defeated again. What progress was this?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75433"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75659,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75433\/revisions\/75659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIf you were frugal, you buy the paper and<\/em> a coffee on Sunday.
\nHis kids didn’t call, but, if he had to ask for a room, he’d frame it as temporary.
\nWhich it would be. The suburbs were a slow death. Faster for him.<\/p>\n