The shag rug that looks like someone's mashed pet. It lies on a side street, mustard-colored and humped by wheels. Each time you spot it, you suck in your breath knowing that it's the brainless eager lab next door, the one that's always running away looking for doggier adventures than a backyard allows. Every time you whisper, May you have a higher incarnation brother. Then your eyes unravel the mystery and you recognize the rug—mustard-colored, already murdered by a hundred wheels.

The vinyl Barca-Boy Lounger on the curb. You can spot it a block away when you go for your daily walk. It's set out with the other cartoon junk—the mattress with a curly spring poking out and the crunched plastic toys. There is always a Barca-Boy Lounger with a jagged cut in the seat cushion mimicking a caesarian scar or some other raw human disfigurement. Cigarette burns dot the arms.  There have been no happy moments spent in this chair—just endless cigarettes smoked, sitting in the early hours, dull half-thoughts circling in the brain, waiting for dawn, all hope exhausted. 

The porch light that is always on.  It is yellow and glows from a small house near the end of the block. Ten copies of The Interstate Shopper are turning to pulp in the wet weedy grass that's grown too tall. Two aluminum screens bulge out from the house, one hanging by a single rusty screw, about to fall. Is someone in there? Is someone dead? Drunk? Dealing?  Or just no-account?  No one knows. No one goes in or out. Certainly not you. 

The broke-ass coffee table— It’s slumped by the curb, maybe alone, or maybe nestled in with a yellowing mashed fiberboard chest of drawers. It’s bashed, missing a leg, veneer peeled back like the skin on a wound. Not even the junk man will take it. Could someone fix it? Hard to tell. Maybe what anyone can see is how the table makes you visualize some bad nights. Terrible nights where someone shouts, another person wails, then there’s a slap like a pistol crack. Then someone brings a heavily booted foot down on the table, wanting to mash it into toothpicks.

The discarded ATM receipt in the 7-11. There is only one.  It's left on top of the ATM machine, slightly askew, the paper edge overhanging just enough.  Furtively you slide it off and examine it.  The balance is $16.39, $23.80, $15.32 but never more than $25.00, never once.  Does it belong to the guy outside, that one shouting into a pay phone? The one with the t-shirt that says Eat Possum? Was it left by that girl, the one who might be pretty, but for the spiderweb tattoo covering half her face? Was it left by the crazy Robin Hood woman—the one always dressed in hand-fringed clothes of forest green? Whoever dropped it thought there was a lot more in the bank. Always.

The bent religious medal in the parking lot. You stepped on it going to your car and heard a tinny screech when you did. You stopped, thinking it was a dime, lifted up your foot and saw it, mashed and bent, winking up at you like a bottle cap, surprisingly bright. It's so beat-up you can't even tell which saint is on it. Or it could be Our Lady of Guadalupe. Someone's chain broke and it fell.  Tonight a tired woman will grab at her throat and think, My medal. Where is my medal?  Or maybe she'll think about the clinic's bad news, what that gringa doctor told her about her mole, the one that looks so funny. She might remember how she pitched out her medal, chain and all, right out the car window. Fuck you Our Lady! 

The wet teddy bear in the dumpster.  It's always lying on top of the green bulging garbage bags, white, soggy with water, on its back, arms out flung.  You see it when you're emptying your car ashtray.  The sight of it, the fact of its clumpy fur, makes your mouth taste like pennies.  It reminds you of the infant you expected to see—bluish, still half-alive.  Actually you have never seen an infant in a dumpster.  You have only heard about them on the evening news Live at Five!  You've been told how confused crack-addicted high-school girls give birth in a Denny's restroom, then discard the babies wrapped in paper towels.  The teddy bear looks like a marker, signaling the spot where a newborn will be left, exactly placed.

The splintery wheel-chair ramp with one board missing.  It isn't painted either—it's just gray weathered wood, badly built, patiently waiting and unused.  If a wheelchair ever rumbled down it, it would catch on the missing board.  You'd need extra effort, a real oomph to lift the chair up and past, down to the sidewalk. Perhaps whoever used it—an oldster or an invalid—has gotten worse and now lies flat in bed, dreaming of wheelchair freedom. Maybe the ramp is still there as a brave optimistic reminder of long-ago outings and errands. But probably not.

The empty pet-food bowl upside down in the yard.  It is burgundy plastic with sloping sides that say Alpo in white letters, never Science Diet. It sits in a muddy patch, dirt streaking the sides. Whenever you see the empty pet food bowl you clench your fists so hard your nails dig in, leave half-moon marks. It is almost worse than the single shoe. It brings to mind innocent fucked-over pets—skinny cats, beaten dogs, casually discarded Easter chicks. You can't bear it. You turn your eyes away, think of something else.  Anything.

The plywood cowboy boot in the flower bed.  It is painted in terrible colors—wine, mustard and reddish brown. It has been in the flower bed for years, faded with the wood starting to buckle from heavy rain. Maybe there is a pinwheel next to it. If so, it's lost its pizazz and barely turns. The flower bed is weedy, and terrible flowers like hollyhocks bloom there luridly.  The worst thing about the cowboy boot is how artless it is—the toe turns up too much, the heel doesn't curve in enough. Be careful.  If you look at the cowboy boot too long, you'll see other discouraging sights: the miniature washed-out American flag, rotted gourds spray-painted gold, half a Barbie doll.

The cracked Big Wheel.  It is always lying on its side; there is always a large crack stained with black grease on the front fender. It is mostly blue of an extreme headachy tinge; some part of it is a migraine yellow—maybe the frame and handlebars. It is the biggest toy in the yard, tipped into a mud puddle and abandoned. It may have lain there for years. You picture the touchy parent in WalMart, suddenly exploding. Awright, goddammit. I'll buy you the fuckin thing.  Big Wheels never last; they can make it through a month—maybe less—and then They Crack, For No Reason.  That's a Big Wheel law.  An adjunct to Big Wheel physics is The Kid Is Always Blamed.  I'm tired of you breakin every damn thing I buy. I oughta kick your sorry ass.  Staring at the yard, you hear the grass wail.

Baby clothes stomped into the dirt—It's heart-stopping. Glance down and you'll see an infant's dress flattened into the dirt yard, sleeves outstretched like arms. You stare at it, terrified.  Nearby lies a pair of pajama pants, printed with pink horsies. It's flat as a pancake too. There's a bib too, a wash of dirt swept over it, duckies printed around the hem. You can tell yourself these are the long-ago leavings of a Mexican yard sale, the kind where clothes, fruit jars and mismatched silver are spread on the ground. Still you keep picturing a flat baby three feet down, stained earth brown, the same tannic color as those Bog People they keep finding around Greenland.

The big dead car—By the curb, in a driveway, abandoned in an empty lot, the car is dead beyond belief. Deader than a split clamshell, deader than a squashed crow, deader than plastic; there is nothing left tell you that this car was shiny once, that it roared. Maybe there is a fluorescent sticker on it too: the equivalent of the tag on the toe, the city's notice that this car is officially dead. Get closer. You note the matte-gray body, the dirty plastic sheet in place of a window, how the front right door and the roof are a different color, the sharply crunched fender, and the way rust is taking over, relentless as kudzu vine. This car died like everything around it: by inches and horribly.