Discarded Differently Each Day

Title from Diane Wakoski's "Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch." I don't care for the poem much, but the line "Discarded differently each day" caught my fancy.

Cut off with clippers like a faded rose
Eaten by sharks off the coast of dreams
Thrown like stones at a heretic's sermon
Drowned in the bay at Gibraltar's rock
Tossed out with trash for 6 AM pickup
Blown like steam from a stallion's nostrils
Torn from a photo with sepia tones
Lost like a button from a brand-new shirt
Kicked off the porch like a toothless old dog
Left by the road in an abandoned car
Wrecked on a reef off of every chart
Shaken like dust from a traveler's feet
Walking the plank to a salt-lined grave
Locked in an oubliette to be forgotten
Hunted by hounds and fox-headed riders
Cursed to wandering and lamentations
Set on fire like a pile of slash
Driven outdoors with words like whips
Buried alive under sandstone boulders
Trapped in the fragments of a shattered wineglass
Sucked under by rip-tides and rolling logs
Stranded by low water in an oxbow lake
Chased across prairie by rabid jackalopes
Spent like gushers from a wildcat well

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside