Hunting, Gathering Poem by Jared Carter

It is a man thinking all day of eating ice
because he has no money for anything else.
Is ice not water, is water not free?
Does it not fall from the sky, forming

pools in the street, places where a man
could drink, could cup it in his hands,
pretend it is frozen, it is something
to eat? Could he kick it from the ruts

in the road, and drown out the breaking
in his head? But no rain hammers down,
there is only the deluge of plastic cups
and fast-food wrappers, lost hub caps

and prophylactics, it is only aluminum
that recycles, that pays by the pound,
that gets eaten by some vast machine.
No one pays anything for glass bottles

or dead cats, he must keep searching
for beer cans, for Pepsi and Coke,
looking in rusted barrels and dumpsters.
He must trudge along with the others,

with old men talking to themselves,
pushing their wire carts, with bag-ladies
searching along the highways, combing
through the weeds, with runaway kids

standing by the entrance ramps,
with veterans out of work, holding up
their cardboard signs, all of them searching
for something, though it be nothing.


First published in Writers Write On Magazine.