Safety Orange

The pylon has leaned at a forty-degree tilt

since the leaf-peepers left and the frost took the street.

It was placed as a warning for how the road was built,

now it’s just something for the plows to defeat.

A thick ring of gray salt has crusted the base,

and the reflective tape is peeling off in a strip.

It’s a permanent fixture of this temporary place,

a marker for a hazard that’s lost its grip.

I walk past it daily, watching the plastic fade

from a neon scream to a dull, sun-rotted peach.

It’s doing its job in the long, cold shade,

guarding a hole that the city won’t reach.