A City of Things

A sky-blue bow, dirty at the seams, left lying in the mud.

A clear pint glass, unbroken, but discarded on the lawn.

A black pen, cheap, plastic, and lost.

A balled-up scrap of paper that turned out to be a crumpled napkin.

The yellow and black crushed carcass of a cider can.

A soft pigeon feather laying on the pavement, out of place.

Contents of a plastic box strewn on the ground amongst them a red sweater and a pink blouse.

Lying face down and wings spread, the figure of a little orange dinosaur – Pterodactyl.

Green mixed with shades of orange, red, and yellow, a leaf covered with a thin sheet of ice.

Candy raindrops: millions of dollops of gum, trodden smooth.

A broken shard of glass, see-through and jagged.

Perched on a pillar, a child’s hairpin glistens silver in the morning sun.

Cigarette butts discarded; the imprint of lips remains.

An intricate pattern of swirls, carved into the cement by some machine or human hand.

Aggressively flung away, a lime green lighter.

A white scarf with black spots is huddled against the sidewalk.

A Looney Toons card game box, contents scattered like colorful confetti.

The tassels of a pink pompom forming a glittering puddle in the street.

A pigeon nestled against the sidewalk, dead.

Small and brown, a Band-Aid fallen to the ground, no longer helping but helpless.

Neon green and yellow, floating in a puddle, Sour Patch Kids wave.

Crumpled up next to a garbage can, a McDonald’s bag has missed its final target.

Distinct yellow and white Metro tickets, no longer travelling from one place to the next.

The lonely cigarette box, empty and discarded, is tossed aside.