Walking My Dog On A Country Road

Used baby diapers, cigarette butts,
coffee cups,
a thousand incarnations of styrofoam.
Bubble pack and plastic blisters,
Tim’s cups and lids.
Gas cans, oil cans, beer cans by the dozen,
plastic and glass alcohol bottles.
Throwaway food containers of every stripe,
plastic bags galore.
The odd lost glove, and several roaches,
an old car stereo deck.
Hub caps, broken glass
and plastic from ancient collisions.
Skeletons from roadkill, decaying in the dust.
Plastic frames that hold an inch of dental floss,
as though the effort of using fingers with the floss
was too intellectually taxing.
Cigar and cigarillo stubs seeping poison
to a patient soil.
Plastic straws, plastic straws,
and plastic straws again.
Bits of wood, and metal constructs
that bear no trace of function.
Dozens of cotton swabs,
and endless soiled tissues.

A sad commentary on our times,
and our disposable mentality:
tragic epitaph of our species.