Waste Management
At five o’clock in the morning
I am awakened by a distant thunder.
Rather, by a sound like approaching thunder
heard at a distance of five or so miles.
But there is six inches of snow on the ground,
temperature in single digits. Could this be it,
my first bomb cyclone? No luck. I watch
as a garbage truck empties it’s green, steel
boxes at the township primary school
across the road. Long, forklift arms raise
the bins over the compactor—like a wrestler
poised to body slam a heel or fling
him over the ropes. Out fall milk cartons,
pencil sharpener grindings, flattened
juice pouches, Kleenex wads, more treacly
silt they can’t recycle. The lids dangle
aloft, shivering the backstage sound effects
that woke me. My alarm would allow another
hour but I start coffee, nurse my chagrin
that the newest weather phenomenon
was just more landfill. At least
the polar vortex is quiet.
Chris Dungey
Chris Dungey is a retired autoworker in Michigan. He rides a mountain bike to work on his fupa and a Honda Ruckus for the planet. More than 160 of his poems have found publication in litmags and online, most recently in Thimble Lit Mag, Penman Review, Argyle Review, and Macrame Review.
