Did you ever stop for a moment to consider,

what happens to all of that trash and that litter?

You know...

The stuff you throw out every hour, every day.

The scraps from your dinner, that flower bouquet...

The styrofoam cups and cracked dinner plates,

banana peels and your funky old skates.

Stale french fries and hardwood crates,

Outdated maps of the forty-eight states...

Where do you think they go?

Trash Mountain.

The lumpy old bits of your dog's pillow bed,

those questionable slices of cinnamon bread,

the long lost eyes of a Barbie doll head,

a souvenir chunk from a caterpillar tread,

your mom's magazines that she still hasn't read,

a worn-out cassette tape of the Grateful Dead,

The moldy remains of a kiwi fruit.

a missing left boot or a bamboo flute,

a strange figurine that was made in Beirut,

the goggles and hat from a test pilot's suit,

three jars of rancid unicorn root,

a most flattering portrait of a firebelly newt.

Where do you think it goes?

Trash Mountain.

The very last bits of an apple core,

Those ripped-up jeans that you used to adore,

a broken old pitcher that will no longer pour,

the dates of the Peloponnesian war,

a suspicious canister of uranium ore, 

the rug that once covered your parquet floor...

Six cotton balls and a Q-tip swab,

the keys to your parents' 98 Saab,

a recipe card for lamb shish-kebab,

piles of brokerage statements from Schwab,

from your brother's closet, a sticky green blob

(the clean-up most definitely an unpleasant job)...

Where do you think it goes?

Trash Mountain!

From yesterday's lunch, a sandwich bag,

that boring old hat with the dangling price tag,

a homeopathic cure for jet-lag,

that curious piece of a red checkered flag.

Your sister's half-melted plastic horse toy,

take-out boxes of chicken bok choy,

your Dad's old wooden mallard decoy,

some tofu cubes, made from genuine soy...

A torn brochure from the A.C.L.U.

the battered remains of a stuffed kangaroo,

a AAA map of Kalamazoo,

directions in French for Timbuktu,

six hardened bottles of Elmer's Glue,

a left-over bowl of that vegetable stew.

Where do you think it goes?