I shredded a sheaf of old poems
Tuesday was trash day
Some things don’t fix
Among my tools is a spirit level
hopeful and reassuring to buildings
that say Trust and Security
but all resting on bubbles
Maybe I was hasty but too late
I think of my poems at the dump
Allan Peterson’s most recent book is: This Luminous, New and Selected Poems. Some other titles include Precarious; All the Lavish in Common (Juniper Prize); and Fragile Acts, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives and writes in Ashland, Oregon.
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