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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Nothing is Trash

I write trash like everybody else.
Pearls, tin cans, the heap of history
made of paper snowballs.
Letters never sent.
Failures of passion.
In our best clothes
we tidy ourselves,
throw trash in boxes,
and present ourselves
like a flower,
that felt no storm, cold
in its gestation.
The flower opens its petals
in longing.
The pale of morning
or the fire of noon.
We are not trash.
We do not deserve the barrel,
collecting the distaff
of our joy and suffering.

I write trash that has
the destruction of the lotus
in its center.
The old face that is a child.
If I were the sea
I would want to collect
all the debris left of a life,
and carry it in my tide,
to the sepulcher of my depths,
and tell all the life in my heart,
this is an orphan,
ready to be born.
Sing to it.
Stroke its wounded heart,
and when we’re ready,
I’ll send it back
like a beautiful shell,
not trash at all.

Published inIndex of all Poems