Paradise Falls

Every town you pass
was once a cute place
when the leaves were green,
and the mills and factories,
the hood ornaments of industry,
where men and women paired off
to pass up opportunities
in profit palaces,
where monied people
leave full purses
on your doorstep for smiling
like rainbows on Sundays,
to settle in a cute town,
raise families,
status symbols,
run lines of razorwire
round the perimeters,
kill possums with passion,
catch fish with sons,
hang balls on boughs come Christmas,
eat well at dinner parties,
wake up worrying about nothing,
to work.