The Fresh Kills Landfill concept suggests
all that is needed is a hole 100 square miles broad
and 500 feet deep. By comparison, Texas
is 268,597 square miles in size. A hole
like that could last 100 years. Garbage
would drop in by drone maybe, or
from the belly of airships, or tipped
from trains. I imagine standing
on the edge of such a hole
seven decades after my parents held me up
to see the tiny excavators hard at work.
"Still lots of room," someone nearby
might mumble. I'd probably look
for the old gold Buick we'd owned
in my first marriage, cardboard still duct taped
to the back window. Or the piano
my father never really liked but played
boogie woogie like crazy on it anyhow.
But mostly I'd look for evidence
of the boy who lost his life on a fishing boat,
the boy who fell from the sky
in his hang-glider that weekend in May
at the Apple Blossom Festival,
the boy who played his flute
on the edge of a marsh one winter
and died fifty years later wrapped
in a shawl waiting for his coffee
to be warmed up, evidence
of the man who forgot every encyclopedia
he'd ever memorized before dying
secretly not wanting to be remembered,
of Ardis who would say "I'll go anywhere,
as long as I have my lipstick
and a credit card," of my mother, her turquoise radio,
or the red phone from her sewing desk
at the top of the stairs. "Closing time,"
the attendant will call out, flicking
the lights on and off at the gate. At that moment
something new is being trucked to the edge
but I turn away with the crowd and file out
to the parking lot. The Fresh Kills Landfill
will be open tomorrow.