Recycling facility

Poem by RV Bailey

What shall I do with this, the old lady asks,
Offering a telephone. It still works.
Not now, it doesn’t. He chucks it in a skip.

Such casual ruthlessness disturbs: the oven,
The quick-lime pits … but we drive away
Lightened, delivered – a new start? A clean slate?
Something about poverty, chastity, even obedience calls.

Simplicity’s not for us. Merely living
Brings in its wake a tide of rubbish we can’t wait
To bin. Recycling’s the word that makes it OK
To throw so many things away.
                                  Is nothing meant to last?

What should we do with these, the old,
The bad, the helpless?
                        They still work.

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