This dream town is left
to parched ghosts whose
promised water rights
vaporized near tracks
by-passed by trains that
refused to stop
for former slaves
or their leader,
murdered under
muddy wheels.

I look through foggy windows of a
cash store with no cash
schoolhouse with no students
church with silent bells,
no dry-mouthed choir
to sing Amazing Grace.

Leaving on the rough,
two-lane road
toward Route 99,
thunderheads appear.
I see the sign,
“Subject to flooding.”