Three weeks ago They plowed it to the curb— This continental shelf of ice and snow, Undisturbed
Until a thaw’s Revealed the sparrow corpse, The butts and coffee lids and bloodied gauze, How salting warps
The flow of freeze A confetti of plastic scraps Is buoyed on, and how the neighbor’s Maltese Has charted maps
Of piss on treads The garbage trucks had made. And still atop each drift a pinhead Serenade—
An oily mange, Sewage smuts and pocks— Of notes almost delicately arranged, A paradox
To which clings, Read rightly—what? A Tattered score of Beethoven’s melting “Spring Sonata.”…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 22, 2016