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From the litter vaults; this beauty first appeared on these pages in August, 2016.
Please re-enjoy.
And now there’s this aftermath. Finished with
reservation. Intentions crystalline and finite.
Flattened in the feelings department.
Wet like the ground of the beer tent.
Jumped on like balloons with quarters in them.
Wet like it’s much, much too late for that angle
to dry it. Dyed the fresh ventricle red.
Proximal as if proximity’s meaningless.
Shoulders brushing, descending stairs
actually, actually done, inhabiting done,
buzzing the hope strings of done. Crumbled
once the sun rises on it. In the rhythm of heels
coming down on it. In the crunch of what’s left
in the corners of it. Staining the tongue
to the nodes of it. Waiting to light the next
smoke of it. Wet like the bus shelter floor
of it. In the grit and the groan of the wake
of it. Shoulders now riding the pine of it.
The breath, sugar, smoke, and the no of it.
Two buses pull up to dispose of it.
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Laurie D. Graham’s latest book of poetry is Calling It Back to Me, which will be out in spring 2026 with McClelland & Stewart. She lives in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough.
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LITTER PEEVE:
Litter in a lake, a creek, any body of water fills me with something deeper with sadness.
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The Litter I See Project 