I measure my life in trash days

Monday is the day

the trash men always come

to pick up my trash

 

trash day sets me free

of all the debris of my modern life

the scraps of meals

the discarded detritus

of my being

all put away in a plastic bin

to be whisked away

to the town dump

rain or shine

 

there are 52 trash days in my life

52 weeks in a year of my living

and every trash day

I cross off another day until

the final day of reckoning

 

as the truck pulls away

I tell myself how lucky I am

to have survived another trash Monday

 

one day I myself will be at the curb

but I will not go gently

into that good truck

 

eventually

I will be deposited in the recycle bin

just waiting to be remade

into something more useful

 

perhaps plywood

or a cardboard box.