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.