Martinsville, VA
The billboards into town advertise Southern Gun
& Pawn, Slot Cars, say Everyone’s Preapproved!
Best Deal on a Home, Period—the prefabs that come
in halves on the back of trucks labeled WIDE LOAD,
and this was a manufacturing town, until the factories
closed up shop, the warehouses turned to churches
with food pantries, roadways littered with signs:
Are Your Bills Crippling You? Psalm 75:1. Ferguson
Tire: We Buy Gold, then Welcome to Martinsville—
A City Without Limits says the sign on the road in,
and there behind the rows of shotgun houses, a dye plant,
abandoned, two mottled smokestacks rising like goalposts,
no longer pumping out anything of worth near the sign
that says Bankruptcy Could Be Your Solution (All Welcome),
the sign that says We Love You Pastor. Get Well Soon.
The sign says Cash for Old Broken Jewelry, and this
is a town where everyone’s broke or gone. It is
Christmastime in Martinsville, and Santa in his red robes,
in his Shriner’s hat, stands regal and fat in the darkened
consignment store. Molded sheep rest on cotton batting
near a nest made from hay. The faded wise men kneel
with hands clasped, gazing at that baby with outstretched arms.
In another window, lit-up swaying snowmen share a hymnal,
and the plastic baby rests among doves, nestled by a lady
in blue robes with her head bowed. This is a city
of supplication, of duct-taped and empty storefronts,
of faded holiday ornaments, where downtown businesses
only open three days a week—a city that left its smokestacks
raised in prayer to the signs, and the sign says Highest Prices
Paid in Cash, says HUGE Furniture & Mattress Sale.
Some billboards quote a politician: “Attracting New Jobs”
but the local radio talk show has callers buzzing, all asking
the same question: when is our train gonna come in when
is our train comin in where is that train and can you hear it
in the peeling storefronts, the empty storage facilities,
the degree completion joints? The walk-ins welcome,
the spider-webbed glass, the abandoned call centers?
People speak of your wonderful deeds. The plastic families
wear wire halos, and fold their arms to wait and wait.
Someone will bring work. The smokestacks
are out of breath. The sign at Lays It Away
says Happy Thanksgiving to All and God Bless.