Body Found at Recycling Plant, Crushed By Garbage Truck

By Robert Fillman

He stumbled down an alley
and crawled into a dumpster
for warmth, the security

cameras show, a young man
slumping against a cushion
of shiny black bags, a blur

of refuse. It's the quiet
that has me all knotted up,
when I imagine how his

last thoughts might have gone, that girl
he met at the house party,
her sloppy trail of cherry

lip gloss, some crude punch line to
a bad joke that never found
its way home, maybe one shot

for the road before hugging
an older brother goodbye,
how the one streetlamp in view

was a comfort, its soft haze
in the circle of his breath,
a warm glow to fix his gaze

on as he shut his eyes, dove 
into a trance hours before
a truck hauled him away still

nestled in a snug dream cloud,
the dark womb of his mother
again closing around him.  

---

Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin, 2022) and November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag, 2019). Individual poems have appeared in such venues as The Hollins Critic, Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, and Verse Daily. He teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.