Reek

Where dump trucks take
our trash, most of us

don’t know: an open pit,
a landfill, flotilla

of dark wings waiting
to tear into the reek.

Salt spray from the sea
cannot temper the stench

of human waste: the wind
slashes each plastic bag

and its contents, bursts
inner tubes and remnants

of coats. Everything has
a hidden seam— The children

who live there find five
mangled spoons, short of

a set; the carcass of a dented
thimble, an animal that once

was turned on a spit—
green, with lunar cast.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Gentrification.

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