Here in this high desert
Where the mountains are
Covered by blankets of stars
And the light of the city
Leaves all touched

A trailer, solitary and pitched
At odd angles, supported
More by its sun-stained
Awning than any structural
Integrity,
Moves through space
But only with the fast-forward
Motion of sun chasing darkness
And night outshining the light.

A few feet away
The trash can waits
To be filled to its maw and
Then, in ecstatic purge,
To be dragged to the road,
Lifted and emptied.

Inside the garbage, a
Mole moves as judicious
Explorer, discovering gems and jewels
Thieves and murderers within its
Closed confines.

An application, half-filled with writing,
The rest covered by the perfect circles
Of the beer can in heat.
A broken mirror, stained with red
Lipstick and pasted to a Polaroid of
Three smiling couples wearing
Their fineries.
His little paws pad over a piece
Of torn paper, whose sum total is
More than the eleven characters that
Contort themselves in a feminine way
To spell out Emma 486 9732.

Having entered through a hard-chewed
Hole in the bottom, he crawls upwards
Up and up past all manner of thing,
Pausing on occasion to smell, to sample
The rotten apple, the half-eaten sandwich.
The smells; this is all it is to him, a pleasing
Mixture of rot, perfume and paper as what
Was once thrown out does not end
Beginning, or continuing, at the mouths
Of microbes, the appraising eyes of critters
And of all who will, when the time comes,
See this garbage and dive in.