forty_nine_sidewalk_scenes tender_square 1. a crimson pipe cleaner looped into a misshapen ring. 2. pin cherries crushed underfoot. 3. an empty box of swedish fish lying in a puddle, their undulating candy bodies swimmers unseen. 4. a red blow pop with a snapped neck. 5. a scarlet shoelace in a drizzle swirl. 6. thousands of concentric circles ringing in passing puddles. 7. the treads of a truck making a relief in snow, the pattern alternating between a line and two dots, a line and two dots, a series of snake-eyed dominos. 8. a plane of ice, fissured into a fjord of running river. 9. tributaries of glacial melt slipping to sewer. 10. sharded ice scattered and broken from the molds of electrical wires and skeleton branches. 11. a black, unclasped zip tie, a faceless watch reflecting the only moment we have: right now. 12. a snapped yellow elastic band, ends overlapping in the ouroboros of a rat snake. 13. a round, flat washer missing its companion bolt, like a promise ring without its intended’s finger. 14. two blond plastic ties sliced from a newspaper bundle, stand-ins for the ways time is perceived: one lying linear, from point a to point b, while its mate curved circular, in cycles of overlap. 15. a blue ballpoint bic perfectly nestled between the valley of two sidewalk slabs. 16. the fuselage of a lemon-colored mechanical pencil, shattered in the street. 17. a net full of starlings fueling on grass seed before taking flight. 18. finches perched on the broken tube of a bike tire. 19. a blue plastic bubble wand. 20. wet dog shit. 21. sodden footprints from bodies that had walked before me. 22. a wrinkled paper bag doing its best impersonation of a tumbleweed. 23. the ghost of a cellophane wrapper waving on a frozen lawn. 24. a crumple of lemony tissue paper choking a gutter. 25. a paper with the word “pow” written in pencil by a child, filling the whole page, and one block later, a split band-aid wrapper. 26. a napkin wad spitballed by rain and smeared into a comet. 27. an upside-down paper plate. 28. a family of flattened beer cans. 29. an unopened 2 liter of canada dry. 30. a white handkerchief with an ornate lace corner, sopping up tears from the gutter. 31. a single white high-top adidas sneaker with mud in its treads, its mirrored mate nowhere to be found. 32. a navy pair of men’s briefs nesting in an oakwood. 33. a black pair of square-rimmed eyeglasses with a phantom arm. 34. a dirty, white work glove waving to passing cars from atop a fire hydrant. 35. a shopping cart full of snow. 36. a burned-up box spring. 37. an empty taco bell hot sauce packet on a cold, cold day. 38. a rejected BBQ with morning glory climbing up its metal legs. 39. a remnant of pita bread, split down the seam and opened, a eucharistic Rorschach blot. 40. a pocket bible, turned to a picture of a waving american flag. 41. a cardboard box filled with red and white plastic hangers. 42. a renegade hubcap turned collection plate. 43. the copper cone of a dead and dried hydrangea. 44. fireworks of baby blue rock salt mid-burst. 45. piñata pumpkins smashed, seeds scattered. 46. pothole lockets holding the memory of living leaves in looking-glass ice. 47. fallen lilac lashes from a hosta's periscopic eye. 48. the intact bottom half of a broken grey goose bottle filled with an amalgam of vodka and dew drops. 49. several spraypainted r's on broken slabs to indicate replacement. 220303 ... tender_square (compiled from "seen_on_the_sidewalk.") 220303 ... tender_square 1. eight potatoes gathered at the trunk of a tree. 2. a mini butterfinger that slipped from someone's butterfingers. 3. a hot-pink peep bludgeoned by a shoe. 4. a bleached and bloated clementine. 5. a pepper packet. 6. a lime-green loogie. 7. a tampon with a purple applicator and lilac string. 8. an unfurled pewter sleeping bag. 9. a small, pale yellow piece of rope folded and knotted into an ankh. 10. a rippled emerald sphere leftover from christmas, reflecting the street in a new perspective along each angled plane. 11. a dirty diaper in a filthy snow pile. 12. a bitty dog prancing in a fur-lined parka like a park avenue bitch. 13. a thin layer of ice atop of puddles, wrinkled like seran wrap. 14. finches perched on the broken tube of a bike tire. 15. a ninja figurine, face down, in a fight stance. 16. a professorial-looking peppa pig toy with an amputated ear and arm. 17. a chubby plastic unicorn with a purple pompadour. 18. a lucky 7’s lotto ticket with silver latex scratched. 19. a joker card from an NYC-themed deck, the empire state building poised like a syringe in place of a jester. 20. an orgy of fornicating fibers that either escaped from a nearby lint trap or fell from a bird’s nest. 21. a squashed glitter pen purged of its sparkles. 22. a pounded pack of pall malls. 23. a fragile white feather with strands of keratin finely separated like the teeth of a comb. 24. shards of egg shell with a streak of albumen and vitellus. 25. patio furniture stacked and sprinkled with sequins of rain beside flower boxes sprouting cigarette butts. 26. a sodden box of unwanted stemware and vases, bordeaux bowls filled with last night's rain. 27. the fallen chiffon petals of a dogwood tree. 28. a turkey taking a stroll. 29. a dunkin' donuts bag filled with dog shit, flies abuzz. 30. a half-crushed and overturned foil container making heliographs. 31. a mountain of mulch. 32. sandbags for a street sign. 33. a breeze vape aspirating nicotine no more. 34. professional painters with extended rollers layering the world in beige. 35. a robin angling for a worm that slipped from its beak. 36. a lifeless armadillo. 37. two roaches: the body of a bug and the last of a joint. 38. a junior bottle of jim beam. 39. a downspout extension violently vomiting water. 40. two passionate clothes pins, prongs nested and gripping each other intensely. 41. a durex wrapper in the hand of a nitrile glove. 42. a flaccid blue balloon. 43. bunnies. bunnies everywhere. 44. a quenched bottle of gatorade. 45. the capsule shell of a discharged firework. 46. the shattered shell of a green water pistol, bleeding out ammo. 47. "finish" written in faded purple chalk. 48. a green bookshelf, a red stool, a mound of black trash bags, a rollator walker, all thrown from the house of someone who may have just died. 49. a baby blue pacifier tethered to the end of a suspender leash, the saliva that once slathered it catching dirt. 220825 what's it to you? who go blather from