SPOKANE

Small city rising between
the swells of hilly Palouse
and mountainous range
Often sun-dipped
Crazy falls once bursting with
Salmon and indigenous ones
Icy cold in the dull winters
Blooming in lilacs, roses and
ponderosa with needles, cones
and rippled bark vaguely
scented in a homey musk
Downtown, Northtown
Cannon, Comstock, Manito and
Mirabeau (which has turtles)
Where turkey and deer have
no boundaries, and the
sunsets are best viewed from
High Drive, overlooking 395
Once part of a fair now defunct
With crumbling houses and
mansions behind the hospitals
That many flock to from
three states or so
And boasts a grand wagon
slide for the inclined
Bearing three local universities
and scads of bars in all
forms of persuasion
This place where many
call home at a tribal casino
or an Idaho retreat, are
Purchasing tags for game
and frequenting community
farms, they live spread out
Cramped into a congested
trough, or drive in from
external county estates and
towns rarely worth mentioning
insomuch that most only
know it as
Spokane

​© Doniell Cushman. All Rights Reserved. This poem or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in a review.