you are the type of person

who finds poetry in the emptiness of buildings,

in the grey rain of winter,

in the plaster of a ceiling

the type of person who gathers odds and ends, like:

the stars no one sees because they’re too low in the sky,

leaves decaying at the bottom of a river,

dust motes trapped in a beam of light,

tissue boxes,

sidewalk cracks,

smeared mascara,

the dust that gathers on books no one will read again —

the type of person who will take these bits and pieces of reality,

paste them together with metaphors,

paint them with emotion,

sculpt them with meaning

the type of person who will step back

squint a bit —

and take in this miscellaneous sculpture of

bottle caps

and bright lights

and broken dreams

and call it a poem