The Walk to School

Twin mattresses stand sentinel

Beside the rusted blue dumpster

Dirty and limp with exhaustion

The paved road

Cracked and dusty (usually)

With chunks of missing blacktop

Gurgles gritty water

Along its length

Encountering a throttled plastic bottle

Head ripped off

Its label torn and faded

A jagged piece of metal---still shiny & new

Reaches from its wet grave

A pink the color of Hubba Bubba bubble gum

Decorates a scented lotion bottle

Cursive writing in pearl gray

Amidst a lighter pink

Murmurs the exact scent and its ingredients

An orange pointed cap

The color of traffic cones

Men At Work construction signs

And the middle section of candy corn

Leans against the curb of the sidewalk

She steps high

In her pink polka-dotted rain boots

To clear the height

As she reaches the school

They usher her in

As if they hadn’t just seen her

24 hours before

And still she has no teacher for Spanish