a poem I wrote three years ago
It’s like a vacant lot with those little bits
of grass growing greener in the cracks in
the yellow sun. It’s the tiny bits of contrast;
grass on asphalt: the desperate attempt to create
something out of apparent nothing.
And the bottle smashed in the corner by
some kid who knows he’s better, knows
he’s more important, knows that his life
is like the pain of skin burned off on black road:
a line of red blood next to the yellow lines
that cars follow.
It’s the smell of the emptiness: the rotting
human garbage and the composting grapefruit
rinds the neighbor throws out her window
every morning because this lot is not her lot.
Streaks of color: oil spills like rainbows hint
at depth, but they are not deep.
They are want-to-be immensities.
There is a deflated ball with a yellow smiley-face,
cracked by the heat of the sun. Four-square was
yesterday’s game.