Passing Strange

Here we are in Oklahoma, the next
stop Strange, where no one you know ever lived
and popsicles are served up for dessert,
wrapped in serviettes, where the dogs are bred
never to bark until they're spoken to,
and finger puppets entertain the kids.
Look quickly. Strange won't last long. Kresge's there,
one story, is the tallest store in town.
The 7-11 locks its doors at 10.
The newspaper is trucked in out of Enid.
It's gone, Strange is, you can see it behind,
an El Dorado, full of dust, the home
of unwed girls, pretty, each one, so briefly
their hearts grow dense, like cherry crumble squares.

Richard Epstein lives in Denver.  His work has appeared in an assortment of little magazines and academic quarterlies, here and in the UK, including Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Orbis, Staple, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and The Shit Creek Review, and his blog, mostly poems, can be found at RHEpoems.blogspot.com.  If your parents own a publishing house and you have any influence with them, Richard hopes to hear from you.