If I lived in the Oak Shadows
trailer park, I’d want to my trailer
to be the color of a 7Up bottle, I’d
want to be beautiful and young. I’d
want to be beloved by someone who
couldn’t live without me. I’d be
tragic, a little dead around the eyes.
I’d live in the space before everything
begins. I’d be no one you know,
a shadow on the concrete, a flash
of color you might see as you drove
by me on your way to somewhere else.

Michelle Brooks

 

Michelle Brooks has published a collection of poetry, Make Yourself Small (Backwaters Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Live Boy (Storylandia Press). She has spent much of her adult life in Detroit, Michigan, USA, her favorite city.

© 2017