Marianne CombsGreg Hewett teaches American literature and creative writing at Carleton College. He has written three four books of poetry: To Collect the Flesh, Red Suburb , The Eros Conspiracy and darkacre. His poem “Modern Living” is one of several published in Red Suburb that turn a sardonic eye on the era of his youth and the initial idealism of the suburbs.
Modern Living
It was all so modern then
when everything was so
modern. Low-slung homes
arranged in neighborhoods of
cul-de-sacs, endless front
lawns, shrubs cut like onyx.
With the whoosh of sliding
glass we came pouring out
from family rooms as big as ships
to shoot up high
into the stratosphere
bright balsa-wood rockets
we hoped would land
in a blue-eye
swimming pool with
a triumphant splash.
Now these patios and pools are pitted
and cracked. Hunks of concrete
lie in yards of crabgrass.
The perfect yews have winter burn,
have taken on gothic shapes.
They tower above the split-
levels like shadows with lives
of their own. They threaten
picture windows as if
everyone has simply grown tired
of the perfect view.
— “Modern Living” by Greg Hewett, as it appears in Red Suburb, published by Coffee House Press.
