We Leave Behind Trash

We Leave Behind Trash

The street looks untidy this morning,

crumpled cups, the sigh of yesterday’s food.

Blue trash bags lurk by the closed shop doors,

their shine dulled by a long night’s rain.

A wind nudges wrappers along the kerb,

as if asking where their people went.

Plastic sings softly against a fence,

a thin bright note that will not fade.

Bins overflow like tired mouths,

full of ends that wanted no future.

Labels peel, names dissolve in rain,

yet the shape of waste keeps its promise.

We throw away more than broken things,

we toss time, touch, and half kept vows.

The bottle once held a small celebration,

the bag once carried hope and bread.

A gull lifts scraps into the sky,

mistaking colour for mercy.

Even hunger has learned our habits,

even beaks know the sound of loss.

Somewhere beneath the bags of rubanish,

the earth holds its breath and waits.

It has always taken what we give,

and charged us later, with interest.

One day the street may be clean again,

quiet as a thought we almost keep.

Until then, our trash keeps speaking,

long after we have walked on.