Man-Made Material
March 1 2015


All winter, I've watched that plastic bag.
Impaled on a branch
of a skeletal tree
that seems to perfectly match
the season's bleak greyness;
flayed of its leaves,
weathered
bone-dull,
limbs frozen, as if reaching out

or just throwing up its hands.

Torn, and faded, and stiff
the man-made material
persists,
snapping in the wind
like a stranded flag
of our common nationality,
the land of convenient, and cheap.

No bacterium has yet evolved
to eat it.
Even the sun
seem powerless
over its tough chemical bonds, 2 sturdy handles,
the eternal logo
of its native shop.

Come spring
the dead-looking tree
will be reborn,
a trembling aspen, fat with foliage.
And the bag, on its leafless branch
will still snap in the breeze,

a little damp, a little torn.
Loud enough

to disturb sleep.

Keep the squirrels on edge,

the birds

from nesting.