Be careful—I’m filled with glass.
Two broken cans inside me.
I’m the good stuff, open me first.
I didn’t want to trust the messages,
scrawled in Sharpie on scraps
of cardboard, but sure enough: glass,
the two busted cans, the good stuff.
I’d worked this dumpster
for years, been caught a few times,
but nobody had ever tried
to communicate with me.
You’ll want me, the next one said.
How about a little something sweet
for the weekend? One night
I hid as the staff brought out
the trash, but when I couldn’t
figure who was helping me,
my need to know got worse.
Business hours I pretended
to shop, spied on the bag boys,
made wild guesses. Meanwhile
elaborate cartoons began to coil
around the messages—a troop
of monkeys meant bananas,
a school of fish meant sushi.
What else could I do? Thank you,
I wrote in the branches above
the monkeys. Thank you, I wrote
in the ocean below the fins.