The Weight

The guy in the checkout line had that nose,

slightly crooked, the kind that remembers a hit.

It brought back a Tuesday in March,

the sky the color of a wet sidewalk.

I grabbed the straps of a kid's backpack

and swung it into the deepest part of the gutter

just to see the splash.

The canvas drank the brown water

and got heavy, sagging like a lung.

I didn't even know his name,

I just wanted to see something go down.