Because the plump bags of trash slumped
beside the house like black pumpkins.
Because eleven days passed and the bags
were still there, sun-baked, fly-mobbed.
Because they sighed as I dragged them
down the driveway. Because one was torn
by a crooked nail jutting from the fence.
Because the bag grew a mouth and yawned.
So dozens tumbled onto the concrete,
minute and white. So I thought, Rice.
So they wriggled over the pavement
and I thought, Not rice. So the knotted bag
of repulsion opened in my stomach.
So I uncoiled the green hose and made
a river with my thumb, made the water
push each one under the wooden gate
and into the flowerbeds. Where they writhed.
Where in the muddy earth their spongy
and pale bodies writhed. Where marigolds
nodded yes to every come-and-go wind.
Where brown-winged butterflies mingled
and ladybugs spotted yellow petals
like flicked paint. Where nature pulled
long satin gloves over her many warts.
David Hernandez is the recipient of a 2011 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry. His recent collection, Hoodwinked, won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize and is now available from Sarabande Books.
*Photo courtesy of Alan Stanton.