Rummage Sale on Dogwood Trail
Eugene Stevenson
Ordinary, the glassware, the cookware,
the picture frames, the costume jewelry,
the power tools, the patio furniture.
Special, the single plates, single glasses
picked up on their travels, Paris, Rome,
London, Munich. The kids want none of it.
Old themselves, the kids watched parents
slowly wind down like battered windup toys,
finally break, no breath, no heartbeat.
Lives worth living are citizens of their own
time & when that time ends, no object
will recall the big smile, comforting palm.
The kids have kept what is important to
them, touchstones that make now into then,
a few photographs to preserve the faces.
Some of the crowd meandering rooms of
the rummage sale on Dogwood Trail hope
that when they break, the home is theirs.
~ ~ ~
JULY 2026
Eugene Stevenson
Ordinary, the glassware, the cookware,
the picture frames, the costume jewelry,
the power tools, the patio furniture.
Special, the single plates, single glasses
picked up on their travels, Paris, Rome,
London, Munich. The kids want none of it.
Old themselves, the kids watched parents
slowly wind down like battered windup toys,
finally break, no breath, no heartbeat.
Lives worth living are citizens of their own
time & when that time ends, no object
will recall the big smile, comforting palm.
The kids have kept what is important to
them, touchstones that make now into then,
a few photographs to preserve the faces.
Some of the crowd meandering rooms of
the rummage sale on Dogwood Trail hope
that when they break, the home is theirs.
~ ~ ~
JULY 2026
