Bin by Bin

The 5 am truck idles 

at the curb, inching along

to keep pace with the first man

walking, unlucky son whose job 

is to rise when this city’s other men 

have only just fallen into bed 

drunk, sated, ghostlike from

scouring the parks, pubs,

bridges, piers, and stairs

to the nowhere men gather 

after dusk. Saturday before

even the sun can blink an eye.

Venus still steady in the island’s 

eastward sky. The keys to all 

the city’s blue bins weigh down 

his belt with a music soothing

to the worried sick and lonely. 

Discrete Man. Dutiful One. 

When he comes, he doesn’t 

hum. Deep in duty, he lets

the music make itself: wine jugs,

beer bottles, mustard urns, dregs

in glass flasks, in crocks, in tins.

Phials of ointment meant not

to cure but to permit the sick

merely to endure. He greets

the cobbles like a lover,

tumbling empties down into

his barrel then up into his truck.

Like the night soil man—stoic hero

I saw sketched once in a schoolbook—

whose patient barrow combed

stone cities, thatched cities,

cities of brick and timber, wattle

and dung. Hauling our every

stark truth into the dark.