Signs and Portents While Delivering for the Food Bank in the Second Poorest County in New York State

No trespassing, I don’t call 911,
I call .358. J’s back is out still,
can’t work, is looking after
her daughter’s rescue rabbit
while she pulls a double at Lowes.
Coiled snake on yellow “Don’t
Tread on Me” flags in front
of trailers and campers permanently
parked in old campgrounds.
“We’re fine,” says N, eighty-
something, Covid-positive,
unvaxinated. The Irish Alps,
The Fun Place To Be, Friar Tuck’s
Lodge. The Rainbow Cabins.
A’s in the hospital, losing
her second leg, husband,
also diabetic, barricaded
by filth, says just leave
the bags by the door,
that they’re fine, thanks.
Wood $5 a bundle, Fresh
Eggs, Indoor Flea Market,
Smile—You’re on Camera.
L gives back some cans
from last week, has enough,
thanks, while her neighbor B,
with her soap operas and Chihuahua
guard, her room at the roadside
motel, once a classic Catskill
family summer destination,
now a May Peace Prevail
on Earth sign on the marquee,
and thanks to the generosity
of an elderly couple
that have done quite well
in real estate, thank you
very much, lets these refugees
of late capitalism—the jailed,
the slightly off, those battling
pills, smoke, bottles, needles—
lets them stay cheap, looks
after them as if they were
their own wayward children,
but B, her place is empty,
the super, painting the walls,
erasing all signs of B, says
she just vanished
without a trace

*

Rob Spillman was the editor of Tin House from 1999-2019. He is the author of the memoir All Tomorrow’s Parties.