I tuck my bubblegum under my tongue
so I can drink water from my plastic cup.
I need to feel both the sour tang
and the deep, wet relief of being hydrated
both at once; I cannot wait for one
or the other.
I put on my suit of “I don’t remember.”
My suit of “The past is just a form that I
forgot to sign,” the sidewalk has a fire hydrant
every fifteen feet, and they burst as I walk by.
The sun is terrifying, so I close my eyes
and measure my steps.
The cup is disposable but I don’t dispose
of it. I feel bad. I don’t need a cup
for every time I drink, the waste
of all those cups and then they fill
the plastic trash bag which then
has to be replaced. I use the one cup
until the entire rim of plastic comes off
in my lips.
I have a tooth growing inside the flesh
of my tongue, but if I concentrate and breathe
no one notices the changes in my speech.
Put your hands over my eyes as I cross the street;
hands so rough from a lifetime of grinding
against an unfairness so vast its edges are not visible.
Why does it get so bright outside?
I can’t even look, I have to stare at the ground
and blindly hope like everybody else.
It’s like you’re not supposed to see
the day coming at you, like it’s too dreadful
to know. What am I supposed to do
when I get where I’m going?
There’s plastic on my lips, and I know
for a fact I’ve swallowed some.
Animals eat the plastic, we eat
the plastic we eat the animals too.
At some point we won’t even know
the difference, better not to eat at all.
Steve Roberts is a writer and poet living in East Dallas, where he works as a mediator for a teacher’s union. He studied poetry at the College of Santa Fe and the New School, and taught at universities in New York and Texas. His most recent poems have been published in Voicemail Poems, cul de sac of blood and Neuro Logical Magazine.
Image: capitalresin.com
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Heavy Feather Review 