Digital Watches in the County Landfill

Discarded when their LEDs started to fail
and the numbers surfaced
only in pieces, a line of floating sticks
or hieroglyphs in blocky shorthandlines,
       right angles, inverted horseshoes
       with luck seeping out into the earth,
and though their lenses have grown clouded
with cataracts, those with set alarms
spark their bit of thimble lightning
each morning at seven sharp,
then call like buglers at reveille

from below the sedimentary layers of trash:
the Huggies and the hubcaps,
the ketchup packets broken open and leaking
       the sweet blood of the Big and Tasty,
they call from behind the faces of the lost
       on milk cartons, and between the time-sensitive
       credit card offers for Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner
       or current resident,

a thousand tiny voices rise up
across the landfill, building
to a single chirping plaint
       wake up, wake up, wake up,
heeded only by the crows and cockroaches,
the worms and the thankful rats.