Chips Off The Block

  She looks like a she

  but who can be sure?

  She’s small, like many in the neighborhood

  wearing a mask, gloves, short dark hair under a baseball cap.

  Maybe she’s not a she after all

  but I don’t stare, that would be rude.

  Not that going through another’s recycling bin is considered in good taste.

  The rubbish belongs to the city, once the container sits on the street

  but she doesn’t care about that.

  Once it’s behind our car, waiting to be collected, it’s within her domain.

  Her bike is sometimes piled high with see-through plastic bags stuffed with

  plastic bottles, either milk or soda.

  Glass bottles aren’t preferred, they weigh her down.

  She’s small, sturdy, but realistic; plastic is easier to tote down the street

  going from house to house in near dusk, as cans await the next day’s collection.

  Her job is to forage, retrieve, then cart home.

  Her job is to beat the rubbish men before they abscond with her treasures.

  Is it a game, municipal employees and recent immigrants trying to best each other

  to what rightly belongs to the city?

  Yet she’s nimble, able, willing.

  She’s willing to rummage through bins looking for what is light enough to carry home.

  What will earn her pennies on the dollar

  and the stares of those from windows, watching her thievery.

  Or is it first come, first serve?

  If we waited until the morning to put out our cans, would the contents belong more to the city

  or would we be thwarting her endeavors to make easy money?

  She trudges along on that bike, it’s not a large bike.

  She hauls away plastic, maybe paper, I don’t pay enough attention.

  I prefer to look away, only noting her presence if I happen to step outside when she’s there

  taking gallon milk jugs, gallon water bottles, half-liter water bottles.

  My husband prefers bottled water; I like what emerges from the refrigerator.

  She probably doesn’t care what we drink, as long as it’s not heavy.

  She probably doesn’t care what we think, as long as we keep it to ourselves.

  She probably doesn’t care what any of the neighbors say, as she pedals away

  to the next overflowing wheelie bin, where pennies await.

  She doesn’t leave trash on the ground, she doesn’t make any sound.

  She, if she’s a she, goes about her business, which isn’t legal, but it happens every day

  in every neighborhood, right before the garbage men do their job, which is sanctioned

  and compensated.

  She’s just beating them to it

  making ends meet the American way.

  She Walked Along 14th Street