yard sale

the collectors pull up first and extra early
no shame for them regardless of the rules
circling like vultures waiting for their chance

and then the kids who’ve saved their pennies
looking for a new to them toy or perhaps a friend
with a frozen plastic smile to hug tight at night

the grandmothers in perfect polyester prints
can’t believe how expensive everything is these
days but are really just looking to buy time

a woman who goes from sale to sale carefully
choosing clothes and shoes to send to children
in africa – we give her everything she wants –

two young women who might be drunk or always
silly and don’t want to leave, looking to spend,
literally, every last dime they have

the boys who come overnight and vandalize
my father’s car, leaving evidence of what they
think is manhood or prowess, but steal nothing

bookworms who know what they are looking for
and are happy to rifle through our fifty-cent
selection, no shades of grey or romance here

the little birthday girl who loves horses and
has saved all her money to add to her collection,
she gets an extra breyer pony or two, free

a new mother searching for that perfect bag
of beads as her husband-boyfriend drives by again
and again saying you got a screaming kid here

the destitute father and teenage son who may
or may not be homeless but manage to tease
each other about kitten posters just the same

all weekend we sit and watch things we have loved
change hands, things we’ve never used earn a dollar,
things becoming the people that take them home

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets in a celebration of summer for poetics, join us!

 


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