garbage day

She counts the lies one by one
and puts them in a glass jar
on the window sill.
From time to time she takes it down
and pops one in her mouth
where it bursts like ripe fruit,
and fills her with bittersweet liquid
that she takes her time swallowing.

Often there are pits
or bits of ragged peel
that get stuck in her teeth.
She pulls them out with her fingers,
shakes them into a garbage can she opens
with her foot on a lever.
It whumps closed, and nobody is any wiser
when she brings the lumpy plastic sack
out to the curb on Wednesdays,
plops it in the tall dry grass
and waits for the smelly truck
to shudder by.

He always comes back to offer more
and she pretends to believe each one,
round and glistening,
immersed in tepid water,
pressed against the inside edge
of the chipped and dirty jar.

Comments

[kelly]

Wonderful.