The Burial Plot

The core story’s bare
As a western set
In a stark ghost town

Built on location
In remote desert
And then abandoned

As a real ghost town
After the story
Was strip-mined and struck.

A squatter moves in,
Content with shelter,
Windmill well water,

And a hidden cache
Of canned, packaged foods
The cast left behind

Inside the entrance
To a phony mine.
In short, the core

Story’s all phony—
A dream projected
On blank, dusty ground.

To crank up the tale
And get it creaking
Along in the wind,

You need a second
Character to turn
Up making trouble

For your first squatter.
Now you have social
Tension and conflict,

Basic two-hander,
Stripped-down theater.
You see it, don’t you?

Any core story’s
Built on the ruins
Of an earlier

Story’s construction.
Any core story
Is implausible

To really live in,
Severs connections
To outer contexts,

And requires persons,
Plural, to detail
The toll of being

Social, to draw out
Human characters,
To scrutinize them.

For now, this ghost town
Sits empty between
Core phony stories,

No inhabitants,
No interactions,
Only the lizards,

Spiders, jack-rabbits,
Quiet scorpions,
And rustling dry wind.