Donut Shop Parking Lots

   And on our snowday,

we could put on our boots,

hats and yellow mittens

and walk through the white snow

up to the hill, to go sledding.

Keep your arms and legs in

and we'll go fast!



But the hill has been

flattened into

Donut shop parking lots.



We could dress warmly,

and put on extra socks,

and walk through the white snow

down to the frozen pond

to go skating on the ice.

Look at the giant gold fish

swimming beneath us!



But the pond has been filled

with the land from the hill,

to make Donut shop parking lots.



So we dress warmly

and walk through the brown slush

to the donut shop on the corner.

We sit down awkwardly

at the counter on low stools

to inhale inhaled smoke.

The ladies with drawn-on fuchsia lips,

don't notice that the coffee is weak.

I'm positive they think d o n u t

is in the dictionary.



We stare out the picture frame window

at the cars that roll past,

in the brown, some call snow.

The flat but, round bellied ladies,

rooted to their stools

talk without air about the youth of today.

They try unsuccessfully to make sense

of why kids turn to crime and drugs.

And I say that "maybe if there

weren't so many of your Donut shop parking lots,

the kids would have no problems,

and you would have nothing to talk of

over your dirt colored coffee."