garbage collects in small flotillas-stained rags of clothes , plastic wrappers , and cardboard containers , sheets of old , withered skin , the follicles of hair still intact , fragments of paper , business documents by the thousands that have settled onto the streets like autumn leaves falling from the demolished offices in the skyscrapers above , thick gray fecal matter , gluey and bubbling , even a clump of fake yellow flowers , floating in the midst of it all like a nightmare bridal bouquet .