the back burner

Quote of the Day

The Taking

In the morning on my way to the subway
I pass disemboweled trash bags
at the curb, in front of the big building
down the block. You can tell how people dug things out
overnight by street light, or in the drizzle-lit dawn,
carrying some away, but others only a certain
distance — maybe ten steps, maybe fifty yards — before
deciding upon inspection that after all they
were not worth the taking. A child's stained pink sweatshirt hung
neatly on a fence, a rusty saucepan like a hat
on a hydrant, a bundle of old magazines
rippled by the damp on the hood of a parked car —
each item taken carefully and as carefully
dismissed, for reasons known only to those who disappear.

Poem: "The Taking" by Anne Pierson Wiese, from Floating City: Poems. © Louisiana State University Press. Reprinted with permission.