Gutter Spectrum

Red light. Engine idled rough.

Street trash, wet leaves, an empty can.

Everything muted, just enough

to blur the edges of the plan.

Then, in the gutter's oily spread,

a broken piece of something bright.

A CD shard, a disc half-dead,

caught the weak sun, bent the light.

It threw off shifting, quick rainbows

onto the grey, wet asphalt's face.

Tiny, fierce, forgotten glows.

A quick, sharp, startling grace.

Then the light changed. I drove on.