The bulldozers have fasted all morning
while the coughing trucks back up to dump
their cargoes of phlegm into the slit throat
of the faceless hill. The earth takes in
its nourishment for the unborn grass and trees,
and the wind chokes on a mound of disfigured vegetables
as an empty truck grinds out of neutral then leaves.
There must be a protein burial every other day.
It's time now for the ritual of dirt on dirt;
time for the starving bulldozers to begin work.
The pulses of machines flutter with the rich blood
of gasoline. Up and down the wide cut
of the landscape, a dirge of engines can be heard.
All afternoon these screaming mourners pace back and forth
among the metal skeletons and cardboard corpses
until the bones of all the cadavers are crushed
by the heavy tread of Caterpillars. The open mouth
of the grave fills. The dead are stacked upon the dead.
By nightfall only a few pieces of broken glass
will be seen on the new skin of the landfill.
The glass will shine like pins in the moonlight.
The earth is ready now to nourish its unborn grass,
and the wind is restless as it prowls for trees.