Street Soup

The rain just quit, left everything slick.

I stood there, by the curb, watching it pick

its way along, a greasy, slow, dark river.

Made my cheap, wet shoes just shiver.

A flattened cigarette, a bent, sad clip,

spun in the current. A broken chip

of plastic, once a child's bright toy.

All the street's lost, unwanted joy.

And on the surface, a rainbow sheen

of gas, of oil, ugly and keen.

My own face, a smear in the passing flow.

What collects, what's left, what has nowhere to go.