Main Street

They're tearing down the bank,

the brick one on Main Street,

where my father used to bank,

where the whole town would meet.

I left eight years ago,

like I was supposed to,

found somewhere else to go,

became somebody new.

Main Street lives in my head—

the diner, the store,

the people who had said

hello for years before.

The bank, solid and straight,

a thing that wouldn't move,

the reason I could state

I had something to prove.

But nothing stays the same

when you've already gone.

The town keeps on. The blame

belongs to us who've drawn

away. The buildings fall.

I don't go back to see.

I keep the memory, that's all,

of the place I had to flee.