Portsmouth, Ohio
by Scott Laudati


There’s no place for wildlife
if animals like these roam the cities.
The country is in on the precipice of it’s next riot
and the dollar store is out of mouth wash.
I used to think about places like Tunisia
and Medellin when I thought this life was fair
and these words would take me outside
of ghettos and the last stop on the A train.



But those dreams leave your head first.
There’s a quick first love and then the rest of your life.
How much dollar pizza can one stomach take?
Are these fair thoughts when you’re sitting
in a theater the punks of Portsmouth managed to reclaim?
I’m a lucky man.
I wrote a book and then I got to see the country.


I brush my teeth on a deserted street and
think about my father’s face when I told him
I’d quit my union job and was driving 400 miles
to read poems for six minutes in Ohio.
The shopping cart bum passes in silence.
His throat unslit, his eyes greyed by time.
What’s the point of locking the car?
There’s nothing of our lives anyone would want to steal.


The tears of an empire have dried up.
We don’t cry.
We’re not curious
. Is there a girl in Tunisia who dreams of Los Angeles?
American’s don’t even see America.
But the sun still hangs over Portsmouth,
the babies smile here like they do in every womb,
and the single string of a violin sounds sad
whether you’re on the rooftops or in the street,
the last one to call a city home
or the first one on the bus out



Scott Laudati runs Bone Machine with his dog in NYC. He is the author of Play The Devil and Bone Machine. Visit him anywhere @ScottLaudati. X: @ScottLaudat. Instagram: @ScottLaudati. Substack: @ScottLaudati.