Is it peace, <br />Is it a philosopher’s honeymoon, one finds <br />On the dump? <br />—Wallace Stevens <br />Out of the cracks of cups and their handles, missing, <br />the leaves unceremoniously tossed, unread, <br />from a stubble of coffee ground ever more finely <br />into these hollowed grounds, <br /> <br />the first shift coaxes bulldozers to life, <br />sphinxes to tease the riddled rubble <br />into fresh pyramids of rot. A staleness warms enough <br />to waft round the lord of all purveyed. <br /> <br />His to count the hauls past the yawning gates <br />of this New Giza into the Middle Kingdom’s <br />Late Intermediate Period. There, to purify, <br />to honor ourselves, we beg these offerings <br /> <br />of refuse be cast out. To the archaeologist <br />of the far-flung future, enough evidence <br />in the inscriptions to identify most owners: <br />spells scratched on the backs of envelopes <br /> <br />to be read out before animal sacrifice, <br />the milk, ground meat, beer, and soap <br />joined in this hereafter with the feast’s remains. <br />Over tomatoes splitting their sides, <br /> <br />over a teacup stained with roses <br />flattened into mosaic petal from petal, <br />earthmovers move a little mountain <br />and, having moved it, move on, <br /> <br />overturning a diamond sprung from its ring, <br />glitter to a magpie’s covetous eye. <br />If the art of loneliness is landscape, <br />armload by carload of black-bagged leaves, <br /> <br />landfill contours its likeness.<br /><br />Debora Greger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-woman-on-the-dump/
