Linda Michel-Cassidy

            Availment

                              1.

The Synonym Finder tells me that
“avail”means: profit,
 benefit, help, serve

                              2.

But also: take advantage of,
exploit, and the sinister
“turn to account”

                              3.

Once a thing is spent,
it is done for.
An irrevocable trade

                              4.

Consider an ad for land
“Rarely does a property like this one
become available”

                              5.

Rending: to split or tear apart, or in pieces
to remove from a place by violence
Reave and sunder

                              6.

Now, consider a bulldozer,
a falsely-fallowed field
seeds not sown

                              7.

This undoing
whose professional name is “progress”

* The Synonym Finder (Rodale Press, Inc, 1978, Warner Books Edition)