Side B

The thing about a bad afternoon is

you're already carrying it wrong —

tilted, like a tray with too much on it —

and then you almost step on something

face-down in the standing water

and you stop.

The oil slick has made a ring around it.

Green going to red going to that color

between violet and nothing,

the kind of thing a kid would point at

and a parent would keep walking.

It's a cracked CD. Label side down,

stuck in whatever the gutter holds —

silt, cigarette paper, the particular

dark of a block that doesn't drain right.

I stood there maybe thirty seconds.

Someone said excuse me and I moved.

I don't know what was pressed onto that disc.

Some Tuesday from years ago.

Some song somebody needed

and then stopped needing

and the rain came and I came

and now all the color is on the outside,

which is either something

or it's just oil and water

doing what they do.