Consume/d

I.
I am losing weight, my mouth
is shrinking, my stomach is now
right-sized for my eyes

I have seen where everything goes
to die, things the earth cannot swallow
cannot return to dust

litter is landscape
& only unusable burns

II.
When I take out the garbage
I feel shame, my oversized
trash bags say greed, say own,

III.
before nightfall, what I thought waste
will be in someone’s home
or stomach.

In the morning I will
stare at my refrigerator
& ponder its rotten swell

From Blood/Sound (Central Square Press, 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Fred L. Joiner. Used with the permission of the author.