THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS by Nate Pritts
People make houses because
a house can’t make itself—
all those pieces of wood forced
to agree, broad happy sheets
gleaming in the afternoon
atop the bluidy clay. How silly
to make anything new. Especially
since already in existence are things
we don’t appreciate enough,
this we don’t want to lose.
Maybe all I believe in
is how much everything breaks.
There was no one in my car
with me when this happened
so I had to imagine a conversation
about burgeoning developments,
mailboxes where I used to ride
my bike through the woods. Alas,
the march of progress hast robb’d me
of mine youth! What also has been revealed
is that the man with the beard
like a blaze of midnight
will turn & glare when a car
honks past him like an irate cloud
in the springtime sunlight.
Even if the car is mine, the honk
also mine as I try to commemorate
the transmutation of my childhood
into rows of condominiums!
Or whatever all of this is a symbol for.
I can almost feel good only when reading
comic books one after another
while everyone else is working in an office.
There are some people I love
that I’m not allowed to love anymore
& this makes everything sad—
even the ridiculous sound effects,
even saving the universe.
Nate Pritts is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Sweet Nothing & a new chapbook, No Memorial, from Thrush Press. He is the founder & principal editor of H_NGM_N, an online journal & small press & lives in Syracuse, New York.
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