Discarded when their LEDs started to fail
and the numbers surfaced
only in pieces, a line of floating sticks
or hieroglyphs in blocky shorthandlines,
right angles, inverted horseshoes
with luck seeping out into the earth,
and though their lenses have grown clouded
with cataracts, those with set alarms
spark their bit of thimble lightning
each morning at seven sharp,
then call like buglers at reveille
from below the sedimentary layers of trash:
the Huggies and the hubcaps,
the ketchup packets broken open and leaking
the sweet blood of the Big and Tasty,
they call from behind the faces of the lost
on milk cartons, and between the time-sensitive
credit card offers for Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner
or current resident,
a thousand tiny voices rise up
across the landfill, building
to a single chirping plaint
wake up, wake up, wake up,
heeded only by the crows and cockroaches,
the worms and the thankful rats.
