What the Trash Reveals 

A woman’s reliquary.
Whole photo albums
doused in nicotine, each bit
of uneaten Shepherd's pie with
scissor snips,
split pencils,
blue crayon nubs—
for don’t you know— 
I adore blue, in the ways
it wantlessly weaves
the woad soul 
through button holes
and Cuckoo wasp mouths,
in the ways
it waves
from waves
to lonely instruments
to Annie Lee
to The Virgin of the Rocks da Vinci
to unworn dress
suspended in the shop window,
in the ways
it sideways ways to 
unblue blue moon,
unblue blue plate special,
unblue blue cheese—
I  chant—
Ia dore blu. Ia dore blu. 
Because I am, I am.
Oh ow, oh oo.

In the unstratified island
of the garbage, 
printed faces fold up with 
stony contact lenses and
barbed stenches that howl
along cupboard corners 
with inundated eyes
bored in tears
of eggshells,
strawberry tops, 
jagged glass shards 
tinted brownie red.
Cherry stems black tar scars
scraped over plastic thing,
useless thing,
pretty thing,
priceless thing,
thing whose entire value is hung
on its disposableness—
in saying this— 
on come the philosophers,
on come the skeptics,
on come the mystics,
on come the dystopian tirades,
all their horizontal forms
and lain flags
and doorless rooms—
I  chant—
Ia dore blu. Ia dore blu. 
Because I am, I am.
Oh ow, oh oo.
   
In the trash 
the slash 
in a single sock
without its twin, the pale
dust of flour swooped down
like a swan’s wing. 
In the muck grey 
of snot rags,
those rags my mothers,
rags my fathers,
rags my lovers,
rags my friends,
rags my priests,
rags my feasts,
rags my executioners 
that trundle in in the morning,
like bright mustard teeth through the 
glumness,
a milelong ribbon 
named sick,
who’s sobriquets can be 
cutting Valentines
or screamin’ meemies
or blue devils
or black-dog
or down in the gills.
The dog eats it, 

fittingly,
oh ow,
the delicious dump
as if it were elixir,
oh oo,
tasting of chocolate cake
and bloody liver, 
the dog’s chops 
smacking thumbtacks 
gums red, thrilled to death—
thrilled. to. death.—
with hunger.   

For don’t you know
I adore blue,
oh ow
oh oo
I
a
dore
blu.

Renwick Berchild is half literary critic, half poet. She is lead editor of Green Lion Journal and writes at Nothing in Particular Book Review. Her poems have appeared in Porridge Mag, Headline Press, Whimperbang, Free Verse Revolution, Spillwords, Vita Brevis, The Stray Branch, Streetcake, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. She was born and raised on the angry shores of Lake Superior, and now lives in a micro-apartment in Seattle, WA. Find more of her work at http://www.renwickberchild.com