I could
apologize for writing all
these words, ones that I seem
to have picked from piles of trash,
heaps I found while walking this flat earth  
giant stale stacks of others’ discarded stories,
beer bottles, cell phones, and smashed
light bulbs

I could
apologize for boring you
for being a purloining recycler,
of all those fetid finds, of all those relics  
though I am certain I didn’t know what
my larcenies and other crimes were,
until after I committed them

I could
apologize for ALL my sins,  
and beg for absolution, say I am simply sorry  
for being born, for breathing and producing  
carbon dioxide, though plants
have never complained