A Woman on the Dump

Is it peace,
Is it a philosopher’s honeymoon, one finds
On the dump?
—Wallace Stevens

Out of the cracks of cups and their handles, missing,

the leaves unceremoniously tossed, unread,

from a stubble of coffee ground ever more finely

into these hollowed grounds,

the first shift coaxes bulldozers to life,

sphinxes to tease the riddled rubble

into fresh pyramids of rot. A staleness warms enough

to waft round the lord of all purveyed.

His to count the hauls past the yawning gates

of this New Giza into the Middle Kingdom’s

Late Intermediate Period. There, to purify,

to honor ourselves, we beg these offerings

of refuse be cast out. To the archaeologist

of the far-flung future, enough evidence

in the inscriptions to identify most owners:

spells scratched on the backs of envelopes

to be read out before animal sacrifice,

the milk, ground meat, beer, and soap

joined in this hereafter with the feast’s remains.

Over tomatoes splitting their sides,

over a teacup stained with roses

flattened into mosaic petal from petal,

earthmovers move a little mountain

and, having moved it, move on,

overturning a diamond sprung from its ring,

glitter to a magpie’s covetous eye.

If the art of loneliness is landscape,

armload by carload of black-bagged leaves,

landfill contours its likeness.

A Good Question!