Prose Poem: The Plastic Bag Sanctuary.

 

PROSE POEM: THE HEINIE MANUSH PLASTIC BAG SANCTUARY

You see them everywhere in the city; drifting down lonely streets, hanging around bushes and weeds; dogging people’s steps; even taking flight in a hopeless effort to escape their wretched environment.

And out in the country they fly along dirt roads, ripped to shreds by pickup trucks. Clinging to corn stalks and pumpkin vines, looking for a little stability. Never finding any. So often they are savagely stuffed with garbage and thrown into a filthy dumpster. Blamed for everything from global warming to the sacbrood virus, they are fragile and thin-skined pariahs.

 These are the plastic bags. Used once and then tossed aside like a soiled glove. Never to be given gainful employment again. Banned in more and more metropolitan areas, they are considered a stigma and embarrassment to any decent neighborhood.

We at the Heinie Manush Plastic Bag Sanctuary have dedicated our lives to alleviating the suffering and abuse of plastic bags and sacks. No matter their color or their lettering, we bring them in – feed them nourishing soup, give them a hot bath, and allow them to graze unmolested in rich fields of alfalfa.

We have large and capacious quonset hut barns for them to nestle together and sleep all night, protected from the elements and prowling garbage trucks.

Won’t you help us take care of these needy castoffs?  For a few cents a day you can feed a family of plastic bags and give them the motivation they need to wrap themselves around your car antennae on a windy day. 

Thank you for your tax-free donation.