Dumpster Dining

Little black eye beads jog—restless—
like a boat bobbing up and down in dark water,
while they eat from the noisome waste rotting in black refuse bags.
A corner sorted by each amid the buzzing crowd,
flocked from both far and near,
their invisible wings pinioned, existence confined
under the spectral multitude of towers—
tucking in like night devours light voraciously in leaps and bounds.
Sumptuous everyday life’s detritus provides for the starving souls.
All senses and limbs joined in searching, sundering
The half-eaten fruit from the seed, the lingering meat from the bone.
The spilled, dirty heap around the bin heightens along with the fetid air,
as they drool incessantly; shoulders brushing;
teeth rattling, chewing vigorously; grimy, hirsute bodies shivering;
whiskers immersed deep in the seemingly edible human’s feed.
Mouths open for food—pop, sizzle, crunch, slurp, munch, gulp, rustle—the noises never cease, occupied as if it’s the dinner they covet.
A brief scuffle of confusion—a container from
probably a posh restaurant, with remains
of an earlier night’s ordered food, drops a few feet away.
All scuttle toward it—screaming, squeaking, shrieking
when brisk clashes begin, who will win the largest
share is uncertain—powerless to ascertain their rights as individual beings.
Prolonged engagement with the leftover brings fatigue;
half-filled bellies slow down their pace,
as they run for shelter in the holes, hollows, and dips.

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Sreelekha Chatterjee is a poet from New Delhi, India. Her poems have appeared in Madras Courier, Setu, Verse-Virtual, Timber Ghost Press, The Wise Owl, Ghudsavar Literary Magazine, Porch Literary Magazine, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Poetry Catalog, Creative Flight, Pena Literary Magazine, and in the anthologies—Enchanted Encounters (Bitterleaf Books, UK), Personal Freedom (Orenaug Mountain Publishing, USA), and Christmas-Winter Anthology Volume 4 (Black Bough Poetry, Wales, UK), among others. Her poems have been widely published in more than forty journals, magazines, and anthologies globally across twelve countries, and translated into Korean and Romanian languages.