Mid-morning.
I go out to the dustbin
with my black bags
where I find my neighbour
also filling her dustbin
with black bags.
I wonder what conversation
we can salvage
from this act of disposal.
I pick out a half-eaten discussion
on the subject of our postman
who seems to be getting lazier.
She, the hollow shell of a joke
we once passed between ourselves
concerning the mail company.
But at the bottom of our matching lives,
empty as they are on this Wednesday morning,
we find only silence
and fill it with the rustle of black bags
before scurrying back into our houses
to sort refuse from use.