I nearly tripped over it, laying close as it was, half on and half off the sidewalk, imperfectly placed and at a lazy slant, its limbs all akimbo. I mistook it at first for trash, the kind of dispensable junk that some people are prone to jettison anywhere they see fit. A real eyesore. But on closer inspection I saw it for what it was: a poorly executed near rhyme. I would have missed it altogether, except I make a point of hanging to the fringes of things, and so I ended up, like I said, nearly stepping on it. No harm no foul, but I did stop and give it what’s called a second thought. And to administer last rites.

It was clearly in bad shape, not from the heat (it was in the shadows) or the foot traffic (people here were scarce), but from a broken heart. Tormented by what might have been. Wounded by what almost was. The outlines of its possibilities were there, if you looked hard and listened closely: a blood-red chalk drawing crying foul play. It looked like homicide to me, but who can say for sure? It was, as I said, poorly executed.

There was nothing to be done for it. I was as good as useless, having arrived too late and in the wrong frame of mind. It looked me in the eye, took another breath, then shuddered — twice in fact — and passed.

I didn’t bother to report it. These things happen. What’s done is done. There’s no reason to it. And with the near rhyme now dead, there’s no nothing.