Discarded

Wrapped around a discarded plastic bottle 
is a twisted up hair extension.
Abandoned?  Forcefully removed?
Unloved?  Unwanted? or grieved?
Who knows.

Alongside, a man dressed in feathers and fuss, 
having discarded his clothes long ago,
picks up an empty picture frame,
4th dimensions himself.

Startled, the starlings quickly whisk away 
bright metal magic curiosities,
stuck with band-aids and sticky candy bar wrappers.

From across the way, a flute blew itself peacefully,
after sucking on a syringe filled with notes
of grief and laughter. Someone, misguided

threw change at the flute, who, offended,
metamorphized into a sturdy bike frame
and became an undercover, subterranean
thing of beauty, 

seen only by the characters
who had bus transferred out of this reality

into one they would understand the music, 
movement and poetry of the long ago discarded.

bg participates in Megaphone’s community writing workshop at the Rainier Hotel.