I thirst for poetry on garbage cans
and rhymes about graffitied city walls.
I want to read about the cracked sidewalks
all bleached and dusty pale under the sun.
Enough about the rocks and trees and sky;
enough about the creatures of the earth;
enough about the ways which humans die;
enough about the forms of human mirth.
These broken windows, these vast and unmowed lawns,
these baseball mitts and coins and hairless dolls,
these hubcaps, shovels, snowplows, ice-cream trucks–
take these instead, and lift them up!
Just once, forgo the ego-driven squirm
and let the tunnel glorify the worm.