Sandra McPherson: What Should We Anticipate?

“It seems that when there’s a death it takes 

a little bit of our amusement away.”

                        —  my daughter as a child

.

I’m packing enough

for the impending flea market: We are

vendors of jeweled dice,

peddlers of old signatures’ pen-edges,

bare second-hand divans in the rain.

Preparing the circumspect steps of transfer — 

death, of course, but also stealth,

eviction, dissolution, maturation.

I bring the lonely pickle dish with

social purpose almost no one means now.

Tinned French Great War bandages

still give off scent,

mildewed, medicinal, soaped, or sweated.

Can I lay by for the end of the world

just these oddities and a paperclip,

maybe a softball bat to establish a history

of obedience (Go outside and play)

and fair play (Play fair)?

If I have to grow outdated and faint

into a trader’s showtrunk,

I know I’ll consist of scores

of diaries priced for less than written value.

Sell part of me but not my whole

soliloquy.  Consider toy-sweat on a doll dress:

One side of life is rougher;

one side of taffeta outshines the other.

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Published in Certain Uncollected Poems, Ostrakon Press, 2012.