The Litter I See Project

This is administrative,
a post-it note pulled
off a Trapper Keeper
or maybe an office door;
the office of an artist
who teaches art for a living
who lives hand-to-mouth
post-it-note-to-door.

There’s a code we use:
symbols scratched into
fenceposts, painted in laneways,
drawn with sharpie on post-it notes
it’s how we let the others know
where the patrons are,
where the skinflints are, at night

we sing it in boxcars, by day
we teach it to the lackadaisical
and the eager alike. The code
defies convention and embraces
conformity, the code busts
stereotypes and sneers at
Millennial angst

it is unflinching
it is timeless, it is electrifying
this artist code—this 4B7.
four bee seven. But.
What does it mean?
If you’re really one of us,
you already know

♦

Carleigh Baker  is a Métis media maven. Her work has appeared in subTerrain, Prism International, and Joyland. A contributing artist at thepeel.ca, Baker’s poetry chapbook, The Closest We’ll Get To Neon, chronicles her experiences paddling the Peel River Watershed. Bad Endings, her short story collection, is forthcoming with Anvil Press in 2017.

♦♦♦

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