All lined up, on the shelf,
on that curious little shop in that hidden alley
that you’d have to know to find;
they sell antiques there, artifacts and relics
of days before reality television
and the home shopping network.
I heard there’s a box there where you can find
goodness and a parchment that contains
the scientific formula
for making love.
In one corner, they are all lined up,
sitting pretty on the old cedar shelf,
multi-colored jars of life’s little oddities:
that fat kid who can dance a storm
and always ends with a backflip
from a standing position.
His face is pressed against
the blue glass of his jar,
forcing a smile.
There’s that girl with bones
protruding from beneath her shoulder blades.
They say she was to sprout wings
but most people just say her father
was a stegosaurus.
Her hair floating in the formalin
like seaweed in a calm sea.
There’s the guy who has died twice.
Once by lightning and the other
by getting run over by the bicycle
he bought his son.
In a red jar, lying in fetal position
at the bottom, sleeps
the mother who was never awake
during Sundays.
And then there’s me.
The second jar from the bottom left
with the handle.
Eyes wide open and mouth in a silent scream.
The owner said I was bought a long time ago.
I’m another one of those purchases
long forgotten, left at the counter,
along with the change.
It’s an unfortunate truth
that not all the things we paid for
we get to bring home.
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