Blister Pack Collection Point

By Suzanna Fitzpatrick

The Scouts collect what the council won’t:
blister packs, glistening
under municipal strip lights.
 
I add my own middle-aged haul
to the pile of popped pockets,
wonder who emptied them and why.
 
If even the body recycles in autophagy,
eating itself each night as we fast,
what else goes round again? Morbidities
 
haunt each generation, the carousel
of social syndromes spins – depression,
stress, addiction – and all the while
 
covert recyclers mutate rapidly
to pandemics, repurposing our cells –
consumers wasting nothing.