Dinosaurs gnashing their iron teeth at dawn
eat our stink.
They chew metal gears, they digest concrete rumbles,
and beautiful men ride them.
Men with thick forearms and strong lungs who shout:
Here she goes! (lower the lift)
Ow! Fuckit! Watch out —
right outside our window.
They wake us up.
All right, we should wake up.
We should run to the window
to see and know
how they are taking away our half-eaten,
our rotten, our indigestible
offering. Here it is,
here’s a week’s worth of what we can’t figure out
what to do with. (Where is it going?)
Thanks for hauling the evidence away
shrouded in white plastic and tied with a twist
somewhere we can’t see or smell. Where worms can’t burrow,
beetles invade, or ants build their pyramids.
Someday I’ll follow you, to see what you know —
the end of the journey.
Not with my eyes, but with this body
that eats and shits and replaces itself.

Grinding and clanging like a terrible stomach, the truck
lurches down the street,
stops at each door for its bottomless ceremony.
While the opera of sunrise melts into day — where did it go?
Where’s the music of our love-making when we’re through with it?
Who holds the steamy energy of our lives?

How wonderful the things of the earth
that return to the earth,
and the cleansing fire of the potlatch
reminding us to give everything away three times
in this life, reminding us to turn even our pain
into smoke songs.
And precious is water to bless and wash away and make new.
Yet most wonderful:
those radiant rites of the air that leave no trace.