meade's liquor store

there's a drive-thru
liquor store
in oxon hill maryland
across from eastover
shopping  center
that's been there
since i was in the fourth
grade, a thousand
years ago. we'd
stand waiting for
the bus and watch
the line of men and
women in their cars
pass through at eight
a.m., taking hold of
the bottles and cans
in paper bags as they
came through the window.
teachers and lawyers,
construction workers,
men and women with
nothing to do, nowhere
to go. most of what was there
in the neighborhood
as a kids is gone,
the bowling alley
the drugstore, the motel,
all boarded up.
barbed wire wrapped
around the premises.
the ball field
is a parking lot full
of broken glass, but
the liquor store
is gold, still thriving.
still passing the bags
through the window
to the human souls
unchanging.