Enough

By John Grey

Enough is enough. It’s also a strip mall

where the woods used to be. And

 

a housing estate that doesn’t know from

cornfields. And people are indifferent.

 

While they sleep, the big box store

is chewing up the pond. Everything’s cheap,

 

they boast but I remember what my mother

said about cheap women. And now enough

 

is more than enough. The mill’s now condos.

City people buy them for their weekend getaways.

 

Main Street on weekends is clogged with BMW’s.

Then it’s Monday and a tumbleweed rolling by

 

the deserted coffee house would not surprise.

Dictionary says enough is “in a tolerable degree.”

 

Of course, we tolerate it. Fast food and a

kid’s playground. Second hand book store shuttered.

 

Like those in the path of lava tolerate volcanoes.

The past just isn’t tough enough. The future’s

 

either injecting itself with steroids or it

comes with its own army of lawyers and accountants.

 

Enough also means satisfied so enough is less

than enough. Any more progress and enough

 

will dwindle down to nothing. Once this town

was different from the next one and the next.

 

Now, they’re all the same. Any more the same

and that would be enough already.

John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Evening Street Review and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Harpur Palate, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.