XXXVI. Gutter Cosmology.
- Charlene Iris
- Apr 12
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 16
Pinned by a shallow current of wind,
caught between intention and accident,
there is a candy wrapper in the gutter.
This morning, I found myself arrested before it,
held in a manner I could neither justify nor withdraw.
A small, abandoned brightness.
Red, not of fruit,
nor of blood honestly come by,
but the red of manufacture—
dulled by the thin film of city residue,
still advertising a sweetness
it can no longer produce.
How fluent it is, this wrapper,
in the grammar of outlasting its occasion.
The unwanted acquire
an austere
immunity to time,
which takes no interest
in what was never wanted.
One thinks, despite oneself, of a hand
half-extended—
fingers at the crimped edge,
the slight resistance
of twist and foil—
the near thing, the wrapped thing,
the light, disposable thing of a Tuesday—
a Tuesday on—what was the street,
someone speaking too loudly into a small device,
a child negotiating the height of a step,
the shadow of the building
adjusting its terms with the light...
The hand unfastens from the moment.
The moment from the day.
The day from its name.
Tuesday.
Excessive.
And yet,
this remainder, unclaimed.
The wrapper, its small sweetness spent,
released from the burden of intention.
How quickly purpose perishes.
How cleanly it leaves.
Patience—whose altars were converted
long ago to other uses—
takes it now:
drifting,
uncollected,
with nothing to do
and all the time there ever was
to do it.
For what it’s worth,
-Charlene Iris
Gutter Cosmology (Extended Version)
Pinned by a shallow current of wind,
caught between intention and accident,
there is a candy wrapper in the gutter.
This morning, I found myself arrested before it,
held in a manner I could neither justify nor withdraw.
A small, abandoned brightness.
Red, not of fruit,
nor of blood honestly come by,
but the red of manufacture—
dulled by the thin film of city residue,
still advertising a sweetness
it can no longer produce.
How fluent it is, this wrapper,
in the grammar of outlasting its occasion.
The unwanted acquire
an austere
immunity to time,
which takes no interest
in what was never wanted.
One thinks, despite oneself, of a hand
half-extended—
fingers at the crimped edge,
the slight resistance
of twist and foil—
the near thing, the wrapped thing,
the light, disposable thing of a Tuesday—
a Tuesday on—what was the street,
someone speaking too loudly into a small device,
a child negotiating the height of a step,
the shadow of the building
adjusting its terms with the light...
The hand unfastens from the moment.
The moment from the day.
The day from its name.
Tuesday.
Excessive.
And yet,
this remainder, unclaimed.
The wrapper, its small sweetness spent,
left to the air that keeps it moving.
It lifts, settles, lifts again,
caught in the gutter's uneven breath,
pressed flat by passing tires,
then loosened by the slipstream of a bus.
A woman waits at the corner light,
watching nothing in particular change color.
Somewhere behind a fence,
a sprinkler ticks through its arc,
wetting concrete already drying.
The wrapper shifts a few centimeters,
as if reconsidering its position,
as if that were possible.
The wind returns briefly,
not as idea but as pressure,
and the wrapper answers it
by folding, unfolding,
staying exactly where it is taken.
How quickly purpose perishes.
How cleanly it leaves.
Patience—whose altars were converted
long ago to other uses—
takes it now:
drifting,
uncollected,
with nothing to do
and all the time there ever was
to do it.
For what it’s worth,
-Charlene Iris
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