I was going to throw away the water
bottle then the river spoke: DO NOT
SPIT GUM INTO THE URINALS.
I was transformed. Red bumps rose
along the collar of my hand and I
scratched until boredom overtook
the revelation, the epiphany being
waste is measured in days I do
what I don’t want to be doing.
Rise with me past the prehistoric
era. I’ve chewed on ash rocks
for eternity. Dentistry
has not been kind. The drills
are getting longer, the routines
blurrier, my eyesight already
a ten twenty or whatever
the technical term for
poor, as in destitute,
as in the cursive graffiti
on the side of a brick
house on the road I live on,
the one-word message
sprawled in yellow
teeth I see every time
I smile widely
in a mirror,
any time I disappear
into a ripple.

(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)