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Be careful—I’m filled with glass. 
Two broken cans inside me. 
I’m the good stuff, open me first. 
I didn’t want to trust the messages, 
scrawled in Sharpie on scraps 
of cardboard, but sure enough: glass, 
the two busted cans, the good stuff. 
I’d worked this dumpster 
for years, been caught a few times, 
but nobody had ever tried 
to communicate with me. 
You’ll want me, the next one said. 
How about a little something sweet 
for the weekend? One night 
I hid as the staff brought out 
the trash, but when I couldn’t 
figure who was helping me, 
my need to know got worse. 
Business hours I pretended 
to shop, spied on the bag boys, 
made wild guesses. Meanwhile 
elaborate cartoons began to coil 
around the messages—a troop 
of monkeys meant bananas, 
a school of fish meant sushi. 
What else could I do? Thank you, 
I wrote in the branches above 
the monkeys. Thank you, I wrote 
in the ocean below the fins.