Rummage Sale
October 08, 2014
Introduction by Ted Kooser: I’d guess everybody
reading this has felt the guilt of getting rid of belongings that meant more to
somebody else than they did to you. Here’s a poem by Jennifer Maier, who lives
in Seattle. Don’t call her up. All her stuff is gone.
Rummage Sale
Forgive me, Aunt Phyllis, for rejecting the cut
glass dishes—the odd set you gathered piece
by piece from thirteen boxes of Lux laundry soap.
Pardon me, eggbeater, for preferring the whisk;
and you, small ship in a bottle, for the diminutive
size of your ocean. Please don’t tell my mother,
hideous lamp, that the light you provided
was never enough. Domestic deities, do not be angry
that my counters are not white with flour;
no one is sorrier than I, iron skillet, for the heavy
longing for lightness directing my mortal hand.
And my apologies, to you, above all,
forsaken dresses, that sway from a rod between
ladders behind me, clicking your plastic tongues
at the girl you once made beautiful,
and the woman, with a hard heart and
softening body, who stands in the driveway
making change.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine.
It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Jennifer Maier from her most recent
book of poems, Now, Now, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013. Poem
reprinted by permission of Jennifer Maier and the publisher. Introduction
copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the
Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
4 comments
I loved this poem. I saved it too.
ReplyDeleteCheryl--Seems like we often like the same poems!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic poem & photo too!! It's nice to see the humor in these, life's little events, as we move along on our path...
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked this one--I loved the wry humor of it.
ReplyDelete