The Bottle Collector—Liz Snell

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The Bottle Collector

by Liz Snell

Cart laden with white plastic bags
like a bee’s legs plumped with pollen sacks,
she stops at every trash can to inspect
what’s left with sweetness sipped away:
the husks of tin, the hollow glass,
a life sustained by emptiness.
She drifts toward the depot,
tallies what’ll get hot coffee,
bus fare, cigarettes.
Paniers billow for a moment
as she hovers in the mist,
ballast blooming into sails,
delivering the city’s never-ending thirst
to be redeemed.

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Liz Snell lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She studied writing at the University of Victoria and is now studying psychology. She works with adults with disabilities and in her spare time gardens, hikes, knits, and makes awful puns.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash