In the trash heap where we lay
Discarded and forgotten,
The scavengers come in their trucks
To pick through stacks
Containing our bodies,
And carry off our lives,
Or part of them,
Maybe just a hand or an arm,
A foot here, a leg there.
To be recycled and reused,
While the core of what we were
Rots away, rejected and ignored.

* * * * *

Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory for many years until it died. His books include Suckers, For the Birds, and Longing for the Mother Tongue (March Street Press). His other contributions to Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure can be found here.