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Rummage Sales (Free verse) by jessicazee
Bradford Street:
A crumbling cookie of a mansion.
Hot pink Audubon flamingoes
on a Northwest Mutual calendar, 1956.
Comely wigs on hard foam heads,
faces drawn in ball-point pen.
Clandestine staircase
to fourth floor pink painted chambers,
A sick room, from the smell.
I buy so many books, mildewed and alive.
A wall-mounted rapier, telegrams from a war.
In a box behind a three-storied organ,
Dozens of 1950 era girl magazines.
'Doctors Need Spunk'
'Can a Girl Learn to be Popular?'
'Advice from a Model'
'He Will Like What You Make'
Eighty-first Avenue:
Someone has been smoking a cigarette in the master bathroom.
Oven cleaner, air fresheners, the hottest coffee.
In the cellar, Hebrew textbooks obscure
hoary beautician tools.
The nail polish has separated,
the lipstick is leather.
Salt shakers, Bundt pans, Jewish cookbooks.
Mens starched shirts, Vegas ashtrays.
I am certain that no one has died, just moving out.
I collect people's guts at yard sales.
Humboldt Boulevard:
A fancy hand-made sign on a busy corner,
well-placed for both ways to see.
A multi-family, idyllic fund-raisers are they.
This vase contains one penny and a life.
Some kid is selling lemonade.
The father has a cup mixed with Stoli.
An occasional treasure unearthed.
A glass washing board
A clean posable mannequin
Old French sheet music
A television is carried to the porch.
It is such a sunny day; the game is on.
Be quiet, the game is on.
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Arithmetic Mean: 6.142857
Weighted score: 5.3073616
Overall Rank: 3613
Posted: October 14, 2002 1:54 PM PDT; Last modified: October 14, 2002 1:54 PM PDT
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