People are chained to leashes.
There are no golden M’s.
No shoe shops
or buses.
No lost newspapers
strewn in city sidewalks,
plastered on bus windows,
crammed under park benches.
No lonesome coffee cups
or green and black trashcans
or black and grey cars
or grey and white smoke
drifting out of factories.
I don’t feel happy or at home,
comfortable or carefree.
I can hear no conversations,
smell no fancy restaurants.
An elephant walks down the street,
the handle of a leash
grasped in its trunk.

By Andrew, 7th grade
[photo by drea bejing via flickr]