City

City

Let’s name the buildings here
after the families that did not

die first. A hardware store,
Boardman’s Tools, is inserted

into the ancestral line. Then
a library. Next, Boardman

Ford and Boardman Honda,
Boardman Heights High School

and Stadium. Each new structure
is an ageless baby, a borrowed

forefather. The city and its
inhabitants, blood brothers,

Boardmans. The family name
crawls onto the land, Boardman

Avenue and Pier, Boardman
Bay. Genes waft through the city

like pollen, like the smog clinging
to the scalp of Boardman Tower.