(Discarded Left-over Abandoned Forgotten)Edges + Lost Places

                             vacant upstairs apartment
I broke into the

And crept out onto the roof

I kept thinking of
            the cracks in the sidewalk
            the grass growing in the alley
            the vines on the fence
                  between the parking lots

The forgotten places where
      two things border one another

The discarded, left-over space between
      one clear definition and another

Cracks
            Borders
                        Edges

The places people rarely look into
            like beneath the sofa cushions where the change collects

or
      the strip of trees beside the highway where I
found the skull of a dog
and undergrowth so thick
      you couldn’t walk through it


-Jim DuBois
July 20, 1998