The Man on the Dump, Wallace Stevens, 1942

From the collection, ‘Parts of a World’, the parts of which are reproduced in the Faber ‘Collected Poems’ (2006; p 176)

Day creeps down. The moon is creeping up.
The sun is a corbeil of flowers the moon Blanche
Places there, a bouquet. Ho-ho…The dump is full
Of images. Days pass like papers from a press.
The bouquets come here in the papers. So the sun,
And so the moon, both come, and the janitor’s poems
Of every day, the wrapper on the can of pears,
The cat in the paper-bag, the corset, the box
From Esthonia: the tiger chest, for tea.