Bags
Black
plastic sacks, bin-liner packs
Flapping,
slapping in the bitter breeze
Stacked
untidily, racked at random
Untied
tops flopping open
Dropping
random contents
Blowing
about in the wind
A growing
contribution
Revealing
overflowing innards
Spilling
like guts onto the pavement
Filling
up this rank and rented doorway
People
step around such rubbish on the ground
A
nocturnal delivery secretly unloaded
Un-booted
under cover of darkness
No
ceremony in its disposal
Dumped
like a dead body for someone else to find
To pick
up and pick over
To carefully
sort, and store and show
Hoping
to sell for trifling sums
Making
useful profit in the charity shop
From
this seeming careless drop
And is
this all there is to show?
Are
these the careful collected works
The years
of prized possessions
The
sum total of a life gathered together
Then
placed here by a grieving spouse?
Cherished
memories thoughtfully put aside
Assembled,
valued, sorted, sifted into different piles
Delivered
with generous motivation
And
charitable intention?
Or else
the results of a hurried clearance?
To a
doorway closer than the dump
An
all-night reception for recycling
A
problem easily offloaded, no questions asked
Out
of sight, out of mind
A rapid
sweeping together
Of
unwanted things that meant a lot
To
someone once
Or unbearable
reminders
With
their odours and associations
That
can no longer be endured?
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