Poetry
August 2021
Places I don’t get to be
Model homes eat the light of brand new
By Sara Stevenson
July 12, 2021

Model homes eat the light of brand new
neighborhoods; voiceless, tactless
transmission towers filled with praying
mantises and people. Lamps, full
of dead skin, stay turned on
as new catalog-home owners do.
Cardboard painted lovingly by people
filled with longing stands proudly,
prettily, scantily. Pageant queens
are still royalty in their every day,
runner-ups still starving to be seen.
Fresh paint waits patiently to dry,
fingers, however, do not; cable boxes
sit warm and green and ready for cats
to sleep. Bulbs burn out and get replaced
with cold spirals. Clouds roll in,
the power goes out. Model homes remain
untouched.
Sara Stevenson is a lover of ghosts, dogs and all things hidden. She is a second year student in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program at The New School and she hopes to write something great, someday.
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