March 9, 2023Yard Sale Chair
There’s not a yard sale
I can just drive past.
At this one, I’m hooked
by an easy chair: $3.
What, I ask, is wrong with it?
The woman shrugs, half
caveat, half come-on,
so I sit and test it out.
My God, I could rest
weary bones forever.
Only later, do I smell it:
like a horse
that’s pulled a junk wagon
the length of America.
Still, my wife observes
after she’s sighed, content
as a woman awakened by a kiss,
the covers can be cleaned.
I ease myself into it again,
wonder when it’ll crack,
collapse like an exhausted camel,
or if moths in the thousands
will flutter from a tear
in the fabric: an orange lurid
as a high school team jacket.
But Lord, it’s comfortable,
books more enjoyable
while I’m curled in it:
a kindly grandfather
with a soothing voice
and more stories
than the Arabian Nights.