Wrist Deep

Rubbish

Side-tables; desktop knick-knacks; bric-a-brac;
whatever the thing, nothing gave me greater pleasure

than throwing it away. Conspicuous consumption,
some said. I tossed their intermittent interruptions

into the wastebasket with the dust were they belonged;
with old beer cans collecting mold, dust, and flies.

If I could’ve seen to the bottom it would’ve been filled
with pictures of memories I’ve forgotten—the time I fell asleep

in a bowl of Spagettios; being beaned on the first pitch;
walking home bruised because no one remembered

to pick me up; watering the fresh planted tree
in the front yard of my parents first house

donning red overalls (those I don’t particularly wish
to remember). Further up in the stack, between

scraps of old shoeboxes, grade school report cards,
perfect attendance certificates, or honorable mentions,

the pictures take on a pimpled hue, spotted with black heads
flushed with blood rising to the surface all around;

sitting under an awning writing my first poem
because someone else had written a poem

and that seemed like a pretty cool thing for sad kids to do;
a shot of me riding a bike with my brother on the pegs

holding my shoulders, because my father wanted to test
the aperture on his new digital camera (the thing was huge,

but then what isn’t when you’re young). Dining tables,
huge. Rooms and hills, climbing up them, huge.

Trees, the distance between me and the tallest branch,
huge. The way I felt when I sat atop it. Beds; collections

of friends; the length of phone calls (whoever had so much
to talk about?) huge. And, still, at the top of the tree

or beyond the top rung of any ladder (being all ladders)
that I was too afraid to climb, exists another branch,

another existential leap into infinity. Watch as the rest
gets tossed out, sucked down, flung into a heap

that keeps getting smaller as it more, and steadily more,
recedes into the tiny pile. Nothing gives me pleasure now.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than throwing it away.