I visited her shop this afternoon
to rummage through the clutter and the schlock.
As usual, old tins and jars were strewn
pell-mell across the floor. “I’m out of stock
in dancing bears,” she yammered, “but I’ve got
a thousand smithereens up on the shelf.
I’ll take a shiny penny for the lot.”
I knew I’d have to fetch them for myself;
and yet, the price was right. I filled my bags
with broken glass, with beads and brittle bones;
then for good measure, reams of tattered rags,
a rusty can, a box of sticks and stones:
the rudiments of memory and art;
the poems howling from my shopping cart.