new old forest: infrastructure

I used to believe in humanswho seized death by a thousand cutswho see the dry season as lookingfor water and the wet season as rinsed clean.that's one less car to stealthe doormats, and break all the windowswith menacing lead pipes and heapsof trash piled up: dis con indeed.I dread crumbling sidewalks and urine-soakedfloors where all the books are ruined.where women in huts communicate onlyby clapping–one for yes, two for no–beadingaccessories to sell to street shoppers for relief.for door prizes. for these reasons,resistance is beautiful and looksnot as trashy as it could under that trenchcoator at the forest banquet where welded chandeliersand roaring fires in stone pits leave us gnawed on.leave overflowed cornucopia of fruits and nut meatson the clothed table. ripped out hearts preservedin jars of bottled hetch hetchy water, distractany afternoon parlor from its velvet cushions for tea.____Betsy Fagin is the author of Poverty Rush (Three Sad Tigers, 2011), the science seemed so solid (dusie kollektiv, 2011), Belief Opportunity (Big Game Books Tinyside, 2008), Rosemary Stretch (dusie e/chap, 2006) and For every solution there is a problem (Open 24 Hours, 2003). She received a B.A. in literature from Vassar College and a M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. She is currently a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Writer-in-Residence. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.