Iridescent

I stepped over it without thinking,

the parking lot puddle

where my car used to leak,

back when it was running.

But the light caught it—

that thin rainbow,

oil floating on water,

and I stopped.

The colors shift when I move.

Green bleeds into violet.

Red melts into blue.

It's beautiful and ugly at once,

the way something broken sometimes is.

I've seen this before,

the shimmer of something ruined,

the way destruction can be iridescent

if you stand at the right angle.

Someone's car still leaks here.

I don't know whose.

The puddle has its own ecosystem now,

its own small light show,

its own slow poisoning of the ground.

I stood there longer than I meant to,

watching the colors change

every time a breeze moved through.

Every time my shadow fell across it,

the whole thing went dark.

Then light again.

Then dark.