Is it bad that in the crash

of trash down the chute I hear

music? The sound of hollow boxes

and old bottles of booze

lulls me, confused, into its groove:

I have trash guilt. I’m culpable. Though 

I compost, I sort my

recyclables. I know the truth,

that no amount of used glass

can amount to real absolution.

A friend suggests we throw it

into space as the solution. My date’s dad

is a psycho recycler, I remember

as I pass a strangely fragrant can. 

He sorts everything, the chopsticks

and their wrapper separately bagged.

We can’t all be like him. The system

can’t need us to be superman.

Of course I toss my takeout containers

without rinsing the grease first. 

What am I if not a busy glutton

for convenience? Waste is as easy

as moldy tomatoes tossed in the bin.

Discarding what I can’t carry.

Cheap furniture. Responsibility. 

The ambitious bag of bacteria

to make kombucha I never brewed,

still fizzing miraculously.

I empty myself gladly.

Trash knows. 

It barrels into a bulge, shows off 

the ways we still overflow

with hunger, so much hunger

with nowhere to go.