Caution Tape and Dandelions

The streetlight at 2:00 AM has a jaundiced eye.

It turns the dead grass by the hydrant to gold,

a sickly, bright version of a mid-summer sky

that doesn't quite fit with the damp and the cold.

I saw a broken hazard light on the shoulder,

a plastic yolk shattered on the gray of the road.

It looked like a planet, only much older,

carrying its own electric, vibrating load.

It’s a warning color, a scream in the grit,

the shade of a bruise right before it goes green.

I’m learning to find the beauty in it,

in the loudest and loneliest parts of the scene.