The garbage man will make it alright: for Nandra Perry
by JeFF Stumpo
Hear the author read this poem.
You ask me to speak at an anti-war rally.
I ask you for the efficiency of ants
come lately across a dead lizard in my driveway.
Day one: the long brown body, belly-up in the sun,
mouth agape and claws still hanging on to the invisible
orb of its life. I must have crushed it
taking the garbage can to the street last night,
but have no memory of it, and therefore
can only regret in the abstract.
Day two: a scattered line leading to the bushes.
Amidst the deliberate chaos I am mesmerized,
then remember the lizard, then remember
to regret, then regret.
Day three: a tail.
Would that all our problems
could be carted away so easily.
But such attitudes brought us to this point,
did they not?
