A Time for Sorting

I need to get this straight before I go any further:

the difference between garbage and trash.

I can tell a Republican from a Democrat, most of the time

but take Manchin for instance. Garbage or trash?

Garbage, I think, is stuff like bones, pits, rind, peels

and forgotten cream cheese from the back of the fridge

that went astray, turned rancid and irremediable,

along with tissues, paper towels and assorted yuk.

While trash is junk mail, and washed plastic

with another chance at a go around.

What about pizza boxes I hear you ask. Not quite

paper anymore, it goes with the yuk like certain senators.

And then there is rubbish. Brits would say Manchin

is rubbish if he were running in Yorkshire for constable

with his ties to Big Pharma and mining interests.

I love how the English say, I’ll sort it out, as if

it were only a matter of separating clothes

for the washing machine or which trash/garbage

bag to use. Did Sherlock Holmes sort it out?

I suppose he did after getting high and playing his violin.

The game’s afoot he would declare to Dr. Whatshisname.

Everything was sort-able back then. There were no

Manchins in the mansion. The manor house had butlers,

scullery maids and bootmen who knew their place

and knew garbage from trash. The garbage lived upstairs

with their spoiled children, rotting souls and nefarious plots. 

Their alibis were lies that didn't pass the smell test

and this was Baskerville with a hound sniffing for truth.

Then there is Senator Sinema, pronounced cinema,

as in the stench of B movies,

in spite of Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett.

I’m thinking all this as I throw out the two bags,

one in each hand to keep my balance.

It takes me a while to get there before

the truck starts backing up, beeping its final vote.