THE RIM OF THE CAN
by Zoe Adeline Webber
The metal hounds are screaming and hurtling by
Stand too close and become furiously swept up into submission
Choking on the gas, the gas of humans
in a hurry
to get where?
To the place to make a pound or two, to live
to yank, to prod and excrete
toxic emissions
all for what?
To go to that place to make a pound to remain in bars.
Caught up in a gold mine of empty, cold objects, I have nothing more to give.
Spluttering tank -
Chewed up leaves -
Bark and run!
I just want to
Stop
Break out of my skin,
And tear,
The film that clings to this arid air,
Beware, the smog’s all up in my snakey hair, barbed!
And I am hard -
Man-Made fossil,
the earth is rejecting my limbs.
I long to purge its gunk,
its garbage,
to salvage all of it’s pretty cartilage,
but the rust of the discarded,
flows into our rivers, we will never be parted,
No tears can even drop whole as they slice against the rim of this can.