The gutter swelled with yesterday’s rain

The gutter swelled with yesterday’s rain,

a slow parade of leaves and scraps

pushed by tired water

humming beneath cracked asphalt.

Trash caught in a drift,

lazy and unwelcome,

dragged past the metal grate,

a murmur I pressed my face against,

waiting for the wet to say something true.

The rain didn’t let go.

It hung heavy in the gray air,

sticky with the dirt

that never rinses clean.