Picking up trash on the sidewalk

Plastic, gunk, filth, missing prayers—

Really, it speaks more to my character than its:

it left their burden in the grey and cold,

While I let it warm me.

Red and blue and yellow wrappers, containers dirtied with scum and sugar and secrets, 

Piled in my hands—the filth is spreading over my body and turning my blood into waste; 

Sticky clothes cling to my blotchy and bruised skin like pigeons’ passings to the streets; 

My sleeves dissolve to expose green and purple and sickly orange; a crowd gathers to see.

I can only hope 

When they uselessly passed along 

The product of their consumption and little faith in the ground 

They thought only as a bystander, not with malice—

Someone else would choke it down 

And make it disappear. 

The crowd watches and thinks unanimously—it would be a quite attractive trend,

To tint my skin and swallow my cough and pick up the burden and the sweet stench

And color ourselves with much nicer hues like that green and purple and orange;

Wouldn’t it be the most beautiful thing, to take something like that and be warm?