A Thruway Ramble
I wonder if I could build a house
out of the things on the side of a thruway.
The rocks by an aunt’s house,
shards of broken glass, spare tires, metal
from street signs, wildflowers, or those
from someone’s roadside garden,
panel tile of a sidewalk, a stuffed animal,
the wind stolen from a child’s grasp,
plastic grocery bags with red smiley faces
saying thank you, thank you, thank you,
bottle caps beside mismatched bottles,
an empty, grease-stained McDonald’s fry cup,
dog toenail clippings, PVC pipes from a
water park sold to a regular homeowner,
cigarette butts, shed snakeskin, a still
and disemboweled fawn, and every
other footprint we forget we leave behind.
Noah Rust is a senior studying creative writing at SUNY Oswego. Their poems “Groom” and “To Kill a Girl” have been previously featured in the Great Lake Review.