Today's poem is by James Conor Patterson

the property bubble
       

love. let's try on this life like a rented tux.
adapt to the driveway scattered with motor oil
& tyre tracks left by some errant cement truck.
let's keep the charade until the suit is soiled;
stuffed—one in each leg—like some ersatz
laurel & hardy into the same pair of slacks.
someday these houses will be carved into flats
but for now let's enjoy the fruits of our stamp tax:
the sound of knotweed climbing the stairs.
the moon framed in a punched-out window.
cinder-block walls gone fat with prayers
& somewhere, the nightman's diminuendo.
let's make a life here when equity's ours.
when ireland is free. when man steps on mars.

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Copyright © 2024 James Conor Patterson All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission