rubbish jigsaw

They abandoned puzzle pieces
on the banks of the freeway
in a human way that is hard
to talk about; the civilized
behavior of waste and ruin,
the apathetic act of
passive nihilists discarding
pieces that don't fit into
sexy commodity fetishism.
Plastic bag ghosts swirling
around shopping cart skeletons,
the reflection is as clear
as a lake's, its shores
wrapped with sodden shoelaces
and broken picture frames,
feeble waves birthing cryptic
miasma in the form of boat wood
and beveled glass.
We do not scavange the souveniers
of the shore, only the trophies
of waste arrayed like the
furniture in the drawing room
of some dead god, speaking
of love and carelessness
with the voice of an empty beer can,
historic intoxication discarded
with the lost language of things.

Maybe you remember the sharpened traffic stake
serving as a walking stick while you
climbed the mountain road, and
the crumpled Evian water bottle that pulled
clear pools from a wine stream.
You walked around the tattered magazines
because their gloss rags suggested
something as terrifying as a ruined face
and you tiptoed with reverance
around a pair of sodden sneakers whose
omen spoke through wet unlaced tongues
about the lost divinity of walking.
You drove here once, but now you know

that consumerism lies with a quantity
and insanity lies with quality,
but you wouldn't speak such sentences
in the face of towering pines
you wouldn't think such nonsense
unless you had starved in the breadlines.