Tuesday Poem: another one previously published by Fox Chase Review in 2009

A Black Plastic Bag Is Rising

on the wind, like a raven

riding an updraft,

a wingless bird

without hope

of ever gliding

its way back down.

It billows and swells,

now round as a fist

raised at the heavens,

then thinly, it twists

and changes shape,

becomes a moth unfurling

from the chrysalis.

And this makes me ponder

the dark smudge of the soul

as it leaves the body,

released all at once from gravity.

But this is the opposite of a soul --

a polymer stretched and shaped

for single use, and then turned into refuse,

bearing our fingerprints into the world,

our carrying urge made

manifest, run amok,

an indestructible

piece of flotsam.

They’re everywhere.

I look out my window,

and see a land-locked jellyfish

wending its way through the city,

harpy, black spot, blight,

omen, burning tire, bit of midnight,

flake of ash from a funeral pyre.

One of millions.

And where, oh where will it light?