The storm’s wind gives the trash personality.
 
Cardboard and plastic
advance
towards me
with purpose,
push and heave and lug themselves
along the road like the busy people
on their endless errands.
 
I drag on the neighbor’s second hand and the car exhaust, watch the
clouds roll in, finally
 
there will be anger tonight something to remember.
 
 
The people paint signs and hang them in their window
so you know what kind of home they keep.
 
What kind of sign would we hang if we could keep a home?
 
I scratch my name
into the dirt, now I have a place
to stay until the
next rain, at least.
 
 
We have fantasies of planting ourselves in a garden
in the backyard
 
and watching ourselves sprout up.
 
 
I hope to become something hardy, and you want to be an herb,
some big meal’s accent piece,
someone’s burst of flavor.
 
We all have our stupider dreams.
 
For now, or for always,
we are kept down.
 
In truth, everyone eats what they can find, takes what they are given,
it is all luck and sometimes
if you are lucky, shiny ribbons
get left at your feet
 
and someone tells you that you are worth something.
 
We know    we deserve nothing have been told
by buildings who spit
us out, rancid fruit,
spilling like juice all over
our backpacked homes.
 
Even years later it is so evident that we will never have hands made to fill.
 
We are made of excess metal,
carry away containers,
granola bar wrappers,
Styrofoam nuggets that stuff your boxes
and the empty boxes too.
 
Detached chair legs,
chipping recycling bins,
trash blown out of cans of all kinds:
pads and rotten scraps
and plastic bags
and the feces of dogs
and cats.
 
Tonight, the storm has let us loose.
furious,
howling,
pattering  against ourselves
 amid our escape,
 futile scraplings,
 things of no use,
 things with no place,
 given life again—
 
 
Tonight, you can watch the wind blow us down the road.