Thursday Morning Garbage Pick Up

Monday, July 16, 2018
I’m barefoot in the street 
             again chasing the truck 
                         with black plastic bags
             in hand though this time 
something smooth & partitioned
                                     under the leaves 
                                     a turtle 
                                     unmoving 
missing part of its back 
             someone applied a Band-Aid
what did they think 
                         the turtle 
                         would survive 
                                      with sticky gauze
is that what they think              
                       life takes 
            some fiber & plastic 
to hold us in place 
                       but sunlight filters 
through slivers of trees 
             & once a man told me 
his brother died
             as a child 
             on the ranch 
skull crushed 
             by a harvester 
                       he said when his mother
screaming
lifted the boy 
                                     he saw 
blue sky 
                                     through the hole 
& that will always 
             be with me 
                                     —see me now
searching 
                         for pieces 
of shell             
Monday, July 16, 2018