Roswell Boys

Gone were the first borns, the kiss ups.
The short and tall alike. The pretty boy poets
And the silver screen stars.

Our prom dates, our neighbors, our paperboys too.
Our firsts and our last loves, each squeezed in between
Now nakedly missing off our paper milk boxes.

"Every man I've loved is lost.
Deserted Providence for good.
No map left to follow. No man left to curse.""

So said the radio last night. Pregnant
With the seedling of too many questions
Unable to be answered, barely able to be asked.

"What of the dead letter lost boys?
What will become of them now? What of their offices?
And their car lots? What of Romeo, oh Romeo--

Methinks, I see a man?" Any man, by any name,
Who could play your role as sweet. Does no such man exist?
Only we, the hollow, the lacking. The now mundane in our abundance.

Who will start up their stalled engines?
Take out their wedded wives? Who will bend on one knee
Bruised? Patch the roof? And hang the lights?

"Am I the unexpected Heathcliff? The sorry dear Viola
I never asked to be? Am I both sister and my brother?"
Am I the woman, who only in man's absence, shows her true horns

Her pointed tail too? Like a junebug in dry heat,
or an instinct drunk lemming. All it took was
A change in weather, whether I like it or not.