Garbage Day

They’re coming soon

to pick up the week’s detritus –

Corona bottles, paper plates caked

with dried tomato sauce.  The usual.

I tote a bulging garbage bag down the back stairs

And heave it into a stained green bin.

The sun is only a promise in the predawn grey sky.

Sorting through the recyclables,

I shove aside soggy newspapers

And the dampened carcasses of empty envelopes

Until I retrieve a tattered receipt the taxman will need

for my son’s meager estate.

Not much time.  I hear their truck groaning in the next block.

One more trip and I’ll be done.

My last cargo is rotting flowers.

A week ago (or was it two?)

when I identified his body in the morgue,

The sprays were elegant white lilies

And radiant but fragile roses

Held high on stalwart emerald stems.

Now they are fetid, flaccid, spent.

They have done their noble duty

of brightening dull days,

But their life ended too soon…like his.

My deadline’s met – the garbage guys aren’t here yet.

I trudge up the stairs, already exhausted

Yet the day’s just beginning.

Strewn along the path, I pass the fallen petals

from a dead bouquet – puddles of fuchsia tears.