LITTER I become a part of this garbage crew empty cans along the Wanapum pool. Peel condoms off rock beside fire pits-- call them snakeskins. I learn quick. When there's a hoof in the road I know to grope through the ditch for the rest of the goat. Sling bags so they won't split, my uniform juiced with intestines of liquefied King Salmon. I shovel a pit bull from a plastic tub in a parking lot--he's dense a nd flat at the belly, a figurine. I stop dry heaving over the dead-animal-dumpster at head quarters, even as it vibrates with maggots, the stink generating its own heat. And as the torso of a man is fished from the river I wade in to my knees. Watching for bones, coils of skin, I try to imagine his knife-bisection at the hips, the sound of a spine snapped. My litter grabbers outstretched, I'm combing for the bottom half. GAPS You're easy for me because I have a daughter, Jim said. But you can't forget how you look to us. Ex-construction-ex-loggers. Pushing sixty. You're a squirrely thing. The music you like. If you could let it be quiet on the highway. Six in the morning. We're all watching the hill-light cut off the wind turbines. We don't want to talk about our wives. It's true they should let you drive. That's why I do, but who shoveled the tires out. For you. Painted over the torn fence. Hard to take you seriously as a guy who's had a saw through his face. Watched a razor pluck stitches off his glued eye. I'm not denying this is a shit hole. It's the last one, though. Our careers. Think how easily you got here. I know you try you scrape your little arms up. You're right. They should handle you. It goes both ways. None of it's you, really. Just you in this place. Excerpted from Vantage by Taneum Bambrick All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
