They moved the garbage bins five houses down
and uprooted every brick on our street
burying water pipes under the bricks
sending the spring water to our sinks.
No one asked me about moving the trash bins
and no one has told them to move them back.
So is this life now?
Five houses down! It was always the heaviest
load of avoidance and rotting regrets
but at least it was never so far off to carry.
I may never take out the trash again.
And all I can do is sit inside,
With bags piling up, just daring me to keep them
as they fill themselves with cast-away, rejected,
empty canisters and plastics I’m meant
to recycle but
that’s even further away,
the very end of the road,
over a hundred meters.
And I cannot save the world
under these conditions.
