Discarding

Discarding

On the way to the coast’s town dump
Junk in the back jostles in the turn.
Dark blue clouds drop heavy rain down.

I pull onto the mired dirt road
Past the leaning one-story screens
Where dark birds hover and wrens perch

But launch to flight as I shift reverse;
Backing up my van to the trash heap.
I get out and step in the hogged mud,

Throw out the old bed banisters
A rusted chair, worn shirts and ‘genes,’
All my grouchy ire and anger;

Yes and my enlarged head tilted
With church dogma, loads of heavy fact,
And too many years of clouded regret.

Driving home—so empty and satisfied.



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox


First published in the Tipton Poetry Journal,
and in the poetry anthology, Dark Energy, by Diminuendo Press