Public Notices

On the last page of our local paper
in the classifieds
just below junked cars
I first saw them about a year ago
in big blocks of tiny, scrunched text
under the heading
Public Notices

Infrequent at first
they were easy to overlook
until there were two or three each week
then today
when it’s really hitting the fan
there were nine

Nine addresses and nine family names
a stark public outing
of neighbors, co-workers, real people
each of them
one step closer
to homelessness

I’m struck that these tragic words
Public Notices
are only a façade
that filters scant light
onto the invisible tragedies
of the newly dispossessed

What’s left to own
when you’ve lost where you live?
Only days filled with dread
the degradation of official-looking mail
its impact like an incoming sledgehammer
to the ribcages of those already down

Here now is the unsettling fear
that the blessed can’t ignore ~
more real than a Grimm Brothers wolf
or the vexing fear of a lethal trap
we could easily step into, causing
the sound of clicking steel
and the crunch of our own bones;
far worse is the loss of faith
in our own native gifts
and the cold uncertainty that this
somehow, someday
this could happen to us

~ J. D. Mackenzie


inspired by napowrimo prompt #3: scared yet?