The Garbage Can

*Note* For this assignment, we had to pick an object and describe its detail concretely. No abstracts, no rhyme. I wanted to be different, so I picked "The Garbage Can," and this is what I got.


The Garbage Can

Waves of chestnut coffee grounds
and yellow-tinted Styrofoam
spill across cream-colored squares.
The bucket is swallowed beneath
a screaming lemon-peel odor
that beats loud navy carpets
into silence.

A sea of inkless pens,
lifeless apple cores rotting
burgundy-brown;
crumbling ivory eggshells
woven through a painted
ground-meat musk.

Perfume lifts above the canister—
sweet, sour, strong—
the garbage can’s unmoving,
yet its stench spreads on.