Her job's detecting errors God has made Designing Summer Street: this busted curb, These tattered feathers, wrappers, dented cans. Forever stopping, stooping, in pale charade Of chores her mother's set her to, deferred By rapt attention to detail, she scans Detritus, bark, branches, torn wings of seeds, Thin husks that stalked or shaded summer's grass -- Then sighs brief prayers for lives she never knew. Her older brother hauls dead leaves and feeds The hose its coil, then snipes at her, who'd pass Her hours in gawking, still so much to do...
She scrapes the lawn a bit, a guiltless thief Who leans to pocket gold: one perfect leaf.