Old Trashcan River

The blueness floods the arundo and grasses
Living in hermitage under the footbridge.
Planted with styrofoam in the sand.
Old trashcan river, keeps rolling along.

He is no safer except for his concrete arms.
Keep walking, he says, insistent as the flow.
Come down from that rickety rail.
Old trashcan river, keeps rolling along.

When he spits onto the watery beds
Of all the bungeeless jumpers,
he neutralizes the toxic I’s. The waste
Of restless waters. Old trashcan river,
the muck of Los Angeles drains into you.
Still you flow. We incarcerate your banks
in concrete walls. Still you flow.
I bless your putrid persistence and pass on.
Old trashcan river, keeps rolling along.