Waking up the Garbage Men - #Poetry by Gabriel Ricard from Love and Quarters

WAKING UP THE GARBAGE MEN
BY GABRIEL RICARD
FROM LOVE AND QUARTERS

There are sixteen wishing wells
in her parents’ backyard. Thirteen are almost always broken.
Two just give you smartass answers.
And then there’s the one that either gives you
everything your heart used to desire or a type of cancer
that runs through you in about a week.
 
Why am I going to play those kinds of odds?
I’m cool, man. I can stand on the back porch,
tell the sun we’re going to have a problem if it rises,
drink coffee and imagine I’m a fixed picture of quiet dignity.
 
I’ve got love for at least a couple more hours.
I can get all the dry blood out of my throat on the first try.
I can wait quietly for everyone I care about to leave me.
 
I can find poetic meaning in the heavy tree branches
that fall into the tall grass that’s been coming up
out of the concrete as of late.
There’s a word for people like me,
and it’s funny that the woman who coined it
could never make up her mind on what she wanted
to dedicate her comfortable life to.
 
Auditions for toothpaste commercials or holding up liquor stores.
 
Even God knows I know how she feels.
 I can’t remember her favorite song. I can’t tell you what I promised
myself last night I was going to do today. I can’t believe
I have any self-control to begin with.
 
I don’t want to be dragged down the stairs by my ankles
by a man in black, who’s funnier than I am,
richer in personality and silver dollars than I’ll ever be,
and thinks it’s hilarious that I’m probably going to be pining for the glory days
of last Tuesday next Wednesday.
 
Starting the drum roll for the suicide dive into accomplishment all over again
is even scarier than losing her in a hotel lobby as big as the world.
 
I don’t know how I can make that clearer to people.

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