Yard Sale

Yard Sale

Gold-plate goblets freckled

with tarnish, disconsolate

pajamas, infant shoes, curling

irons, somebody’s ancient

block flute, a candlestick grove,

bakelite coasters, egg poachers,

7 rubber sandals. Scruffy dolls

and accessories, board games

from whose battered boxes

children still look up with glee.

Two bald lamps, a basketball

and dumbbells, a toaster’s chrome

full of early leaves, and tilted

like a grimy satellite inside

a crate, a two-stroke engine.

Now at last admitted to my

neighbor’s back lawn, which

I’ve longed to cut across for years.

I see a tuft of grass and violets,

violets, growing, up in that

elm’s clavicle, a little island

world in the air, where the trunk

divides. I wouldn’t know how

to tell her of the delight I find

in this. But I think I’ll buy that

small stack of teaspoons, just

so I can linger, picking up this

language, whose every word has

finally toppled over in one case

or tense or mood.  Everything as is.

- Robert Farnsworth