Don't expect a story here. The poem works more like a handful of images thrown onto the table, and the pleasure is in how they knock against each other. A trashcan is asked for Zen wisdom, which is funny and a little sad: the answer has to come from what's been thrown away. The "guess of bones" suggests something like fortune-telling or digging through remains, as if the past can only be read in scraps.
Then the time gets slippery. "How much later ago" scrambles past and future into one awkward phrase, and "the barricades" hints at protest or struggle, though the poem never says whose. The last lines, "blizzards / at tar and tea," set cold and white against something black and sticky, then something warm and domestic.
The speaker's feelings are hard to pin down. The judging by the tone, there's a restless, wry curiosity, mixed with a sense of debris and aftermath. The mood is odd, playful, and slightly bleak, like a puzzle that refuses to be solved.