Forget what the movies told you

Forget what the movies told you.

There is no grace in the way it hitches

against the chain-link by the dryers.

It’s just a grey skin,

stuttering in the draft

like a tongue that can’t find the word.

It sounds like a snapping bone,

over and over,

as the wind tries to pull it through the wire.

The barbs have it by the throat.

It’s not floating. It’s trapped.

A scrap of polyethylene

strangled by a fence,

waiting for the sun to bake it

until it finally flakes into the dirt.