THE EVOLVING CITY Greta Ehrig   THE TWO PINK HOUSES ON SWINK'S MILL ROAD 1. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road, one new, the other old, stand like sentinels in the December cold keeping watch over each flake of snow that slicks the crossings of Swinks Mill Road. 2. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road, whether plain and small or Mediterranean and sprawl- ing, shiver to hear Winter's thaw ever earlier along Swinks Mill Road. 3. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road, witnessing bamboo and backhoes that chase raccoons and peepers from their vernal pools, dream of sycamores on Swinks Mill Road. 4. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road resemble the gold that built them, the bits and bars connecting then to now and the who-knows-when that's somewhere down Swinks Mill's road. 5. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road know such riches and poverty too. Daily they see each vehicle cut through and learn which zoom belongs to whom, those wise windows on Swinks Mill Road. 6. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road gaze not upon each other, yet like twin twilights familiar as brothers they love the selfsame color that's dawn and dusk on Swinks Mill Road. 7. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road remember Summer's most flagrant joys now buried beneath abandoned toys and the haunted psyche of every boy who ever down at Swinks Mill rode. 8. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road, both gated and guarded, keep out peddlers, pilgrims, and poets about to trespass, alarm, stir-up and shout past dooryards and doors on Swinks Mill Road. 9. The two pink houses on Swinks Mill Road, each day I pass them with my little load of quarter, half, and whole notes spilling out old fashioned hopes for all the futures of Swinks Mill Road.     Greta Ehrig has been published in Southern Poetry Review, 13th Moon, Delos, Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith, and Louisiana Literature, where she was a semifinalist in their 1999 poetry contest. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, where she also served as editor of Folio literary journal. She has been awarded grants from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Montgomery College School of Nursing, the Maryland State Arts Council, the National League of American Pen Women, and the Lannan Foundation. In addition to writing poetry, she is a musician and songwriter.   Published in Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 2007.