At the Pawn Shop
Purple neon lured the leery into the shop’s maw.
Aged asphalt tiles buffed by an old brush-spinner reflected the loot.
The bits and pieces of people’s lives, hung on pegs, or hid behind glass.
Ashamed, ashamed of the negligence of their owners, lost, lost,
most never would return home, unlike the Velveteen Rabbit.
They were not real.
Only items of some value arrived here.
Into the belly of the beast, for their owners had been truly gutted.
Each shelf and case, each peg and hook, a repository for the
flotsam and jetsam of someone’s life, lost,
pay-back for misspent youth and the poverty of age.
They were not real.
Sometimes, on brighter days their delinquent owners would return,
greenbacks in hand, tears in their eyes, and a stray bit would be retrieved.
These bits were ALMOST real, with a bit more love maybe,
they’d both be real.
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