Stoneware Bottle with Broken Lip
Out of the hot Maine July
noon
In a listing antiques barn,
Among the kitsch and jetsam,
This bottle with no handles
grabbed me-
With no raised foot, tripped
me up.
In the white sun a wince in
the height of day
Cool concrete and wood lured
my son and me in
Beneath the Picker’s Palace
sign-
His baseball cap shading his
tumble-haired head
His search focused tight on
musical things, and games-
When cheek by jowl to
scalloped milk glass
And faded beige satin
pincushions
The chipped gray gleam of its
little mouth in the gloom
Blew me a kiss. I swear.
I heard the phantom snap of
ancient pine ash melting.
We climbed a flight of metal
steps
Saw chairs and chests and
Esso signs
And came back down with my
sturdy boy clutching
A harmonica still in its box,
and a dinged-up iron putter
But my hands empty longed for
the rich brown bottle.
A freckle of stony bits
complicated its skin
Stippled with fly-ash,
unsigned, alone, out of place,
The mark of a twisted cutoff
wire beneath its narrow bottom,
Its belly swelled with old
sweet fire…
I bought it. What was the
tiny price? Some paper tag long gone now.
copyright Mimi Stadler 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment