When I pick up litter from a pile or collection, I don’t always pick up all of it. I imagine conversations in my head if someone asked why I left some. Sometimes the drug users in Washington Square Park will point me to pieces I didn’t pick up. I think they feel like they’re doing me a favor, maybe based on thinking I like picking up trash just because and not condescending.

Anyway, I think the following words, which I’m deciding comprise a poem.

I’m not going to pick up everything.

But I’m going to pick up something.

I’m not going to pick up nothing.

Will you pick up anything?

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I’m no poet, so don’t ask me if it counts as rhyming when the words are as close as everything, something, nothing, and anything. And I don’t think I have a consistent meter, but I’m calling it a poem.

• ← Another morning walk seeing litter in my neighborhood.
• 511: Joe Collins, part 1.5: Can We Clean South Central Los Angeles? →