The garbage reeks, full of leftovers 
and moldy lemons, mats of dryer lint, 
like a skin of algae on the surface 
of a pond. I ought to take the full bag 
out, but I’m reluctant to engage with 
the decay that’s at the heart of everything. 
And yet, if one could study it impartially, 
without a trace of terror or repulsion, 
the vivid shades of dissolution rival 
the desert after rain, spilled paint 
spreading to the far horizon. Even 
the odors hover on the edge of almost 
beautiful, as full as perfume’s ripe musk, 
purple as the jacaranda. It can even 
be delicious—at least to some. Consider 
the fragrant funk of some ripe cheeses, 
durian, or kimchi, thousand-year-old eggs, 
buried in the yard until the yolk marbles 
greenish black. Without rot, none of us 
could thrive. Everything that grows 
feeds on what went before, ocean reefs 
seeded by a wealth of putrid whalefall, 
ancient cities stacked one atop another, 
rising from the same foundation, fertile 
ground for everything to come. 
                        

I imagined that I sat triumphant as a warrior 
on a granite pedestal, mounted on a horse 
named Truth. Then the ground shifted. 
I saw the horse had just one eye, the pedestal 
perched on a cliff’s edge, a steep drop 
to the sea. I vowed to plant my feet on the hard 
earth, strewn with shards of shist, old arrowheads, 
but finally accepted that I’d have to stumble through 
the darkness, barefoot and half blind, though not 
alone, each one fated to help the others find the way.