A dropping, a spilling,
a shame. A child
or a grown up who wishes
they hadn’t.
A tut at the ground
and a sigh at the sky,
as you scurry to work,
at the mess, at the waste
of a puzzle that could
have been solved.
Someone might stop
to retrieve all the pieces,
though you can tell
just by looking it’s not whole
and who would have time?
Someone might find
a moment to flip the square
blank board with a toe
to see what’s on the other side,
wince at the ghastly cute pug
someone could probably love,
wonder why the painter played
with such decorative, garish perspective.
You might bend quickly to pick
the picture up, angle it behind
the railings to lean it up out of the rain
that’s one hundred per cent
forecast to fall.
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Joanna Lilley is the author of three poetry books, including Endlings (Turnstone Press) which is all about extinction and won the Fred Kerner Book Award. She’s also published a novel, Worry Stones (Ronsdale Press), and a short story collection, The Birthday Books (Hagios Press). A settler from the UK, Joanna lives with gratitude in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, on the Traditional Territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
She can be found at www.joannalilley.com
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Image courtesy of Leona Theiss.
The Litter I See Project 