From Writing Notebook 2021, published in 2022.
In the Mirror on the Wall
I blew into town. Twelve noon.
It was pouring down rain.
I was looking for a man
in a restaurant
on a side street in a town that was
a nobody nowhere and flattering itself
it had reached even that level
The man and I
the last two of us
a couple of cast-offs from
a flea-market box-lot
left behind after the show
cardboard and
dissolving in the rain
I found him
in the restaurant
If only this one time
he had been late.
Or if I had.
1/22/21
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I read this one twice and am left with a feeling of desperation and regret.
Thank you. Sometimes on trips you pass through places that just seem to reek of despair, or having given up. This poem is not based on a particular experience but in thinking about the topic this is what I imagined.
I think this could pretty much describe my home town.
Place go through life cycles. I have seen sections of Philadelphia in this shape, and today, quite different. Which is an idea that makes me feel better when I see these scenes, maybe there will be renewal.