Mutation II by Aris Katsilakis
Waste Management by Robert Lee Kendrick
to steal ten minutes away from the price gun & box cutter & Mr. Manigault’s managing eye & no talking unless a customer asks where’s my organic baby food/my free range duck / my biodynamic red kidney beans/my gourmet macrobiotic frozen burrito bites (boy)? I lift myself into the recycling dumpster & drive my boots into broken down boxes that once held dozens of cartons & cans identical disposable replaceable after stomp crush & kick in humid june sun I pause under a drizzle of crape myrtle petals then get out of the dumpster & into the dining patio trash take meat & carrots & kale & fresh whole grain bread & hide a feast by the fence for the brindle mutt that dens by the vacant mill down the block & slips through the chain link at night Manigault hates that freeloading son of a bitch 19