The Yard Sale

*Note* This may be one of the most excruciating poems I've ever had to write. Everyone in the class was required to bring in a random object, and we went in a circle and talked about it and its importance to us. We had to write down what the person said as exact as we could...and then write a poem including all of the objects. The following poem is the only thing that I could come up with, but the professor told me it was "one of the more successful object poems in the class."



The Yard Sale

Boxes jumbled across a bed of bright green:
rust-colored, dust-covered, coated with grime.
Tables lounge, scorched by the sun,
proudly displaying secondhand treasures:

an ancient Aztec medallion captures the light;
prismatic rays deflect off a nearby crucifix
curved slightly down the spine—golden scoliosis;

Round yellow beads like plump grapes
coil, snakelike, in a ceramic clay pot—
fangs at the ready, poised to strike;

Crude knife-marks run around the edge of a carved
South African jar. The splintered base
plays paperweight for a square of paper
folded Chinese-restaurant style;

a miniature gong sounds
its dwarfish boom; the lens of a coverless
camera gazes on a brittle cookbook.

A cardboard box spills it contents
across the driveway: a mess of crafts, battered
and beaten; a red plaid patch, perfectly frayed;
embroidery floss from a cherished wedding.

Animals, stuffed with cotton and cleaned:
a shark with fierce fabric teeth; a bear and a dog,
paws pinned together; a brown beagle on a keychain;
bleach-white owl, statue-stiff, glassy eyed.

The afternoon dissolves, and the sun
plunges behind broken houses,
throwing Night over the rooftops
like a tattered towel.