The Underground Man. Jasen Sousa

to, "what we must do to be an adult.” There was nothing better

      than playground days and no scheduled time to be home.

      Crooked picture frame, hanging

      underneath a dead clock and insects that contort

      inside fluorescent light fixtures. A blinking light on my office phone

      and the messages I haven't heard because I already know their content.

      Disconnect…

      Meet Me in Somerville

      Meet me in Somerville

      and drown matches in overpriced coffee.

      Out of reach stars sit in the sky,

      like decimals in my mind

      trying to rearrange numbers

      so I continue to buy

      things that will satisfy me

      for no longer than my favorite TV show.

      Meet me in Somerville

      where residents live on top of one another

      just to afford rent. Do you know

      about the underground economy

      where greedy landlords

      stuff the undocumented into triple-decker tents?

      Meet me in Somerville

      next to the crooked EBT sign

      hanging on by yellowed tape

      that changed texture

      like the skin of a relapsing…

      Meet me in Somerville

      by the empty space

      occupied by the previous generation

      that grew up to be cultural myths and urban legends

      layered inside the foundations of gentrification.

      Broken promises jotted down on alleyway walls

      by the city’s most unreliable narrator.

      Antique Man

      I took a photo of an old man in Maine

      who sat down gingerly in a wooden chair

      after removing multiple avocado green

      tarps off his merchandise. It was about 9:15 A.M.

      and the dampness from the moist dirt ground

      crawled inside my socks, up my legs,

      and drilled holes into my flesh. Water from

      an overnight rain found its way inside soup bowls,

      cologne bottles, and cups that I might have seen

      before in my grandmother’s cellar.

      His thick glasses weighed on his cheekbones

      like the stacks of hammers, wrenches, and saws

      that put a slight bend in the center of his tool’s table.

      This man’s life and interests

      were played out: Star Trek comics,

      Coca-Cola bottles, Billie Holiday records,

      and stuff that didn’t quite add up

      like the floral china set that maybe

      belonged to the love of his life.

      I couldn’t have been more wrong

      about my definition of nowhere. What is nowhere?

      Radiant foliage? Winding roads? Christmas tree farms?

      What is somewhere? Crowded subways? Addiction? The Corner?

      I was burrowed in the middle of a man’s life

      and realized how time has a humorous way of determining

      what is and what is not valuable to someone anymore.

      Antique man sat in his lonely wooden chair

      for hours on end in a flannel shirt and grey beard

      waiting for others to come by and replace what they

      lost in their lives along the way.

      I looked across the street and felt like

      I was the only person who heard

      the thumps of autumn leaves

      falling inside of a Maine cemetery.