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The blue, or sapphire, plastic WAL-MART bag
bulging with black plums and sweet cantaloupe,
a fetus in its amniotic sac,
bursts as it lands on the volcanic dump.

Homer, Trojans, tampons, mockingbird chirps
mingle in the stinking heap, seeking links,
non sequiturs like an Exquisite Corpse.
Solomon’s vineyard feeds Breton’s blue fox.

Tell me, Wallace Stevens, tell me now, what
device can tame these acidic scents born
from the mush of books, beasts, mildew and Donne—

not something jarring like a rifle butt,
but formal, fitted, proven as a worn-
out filter, say, fourteen by ten by one?