Still Life With Thrifted Object

I feel an affinity for the objects,

many hands touched and one hand

threw away. The discarded anniversary plate

after the adversaries have commenced.

Craps and edges, still cling, relieved of duties.

A jumble of unlike-colored items

that trash talk across eras

what it was to be exalted.

Even contraband was once up to some good.

The piece of the past missed in the present frenzy.

Beauty in uselessness. How a thing

needs to be moved to reveal a value.

The value in what moved us first.

I said to the dealer, look man, this glass,

improbably whole after crazing and contagion

a mother once filled, to satisfy a child’s thirst.