Consignment and Resignment
Consignment and Resignment
by Laura Summerville Reed
I've decided I need money; I'm digging
through drawers and on shelves, under things.
A flashlight and my cat accompany me
into the dark recesses of the attic.
I'll take the collected prizes of my life
to be bartered for cold, hard cash.
A consignment shop is the point of no return,
but my prizes don't know this.
It's their adventure. I am their traitor
Do you stay or do you go?
Are you useful or do
I merely love you best?
How many fingertips have touched
the things that others might wish to hold?
How many faces have stared back
from this mirror in my hand?
I've come across a compact.
It belonged to my grandfather's sister.
How it came to be mine, I've long forgotten.
I wonder when she stopped looking
in the silvered glass that still glamorously
declares its case ensconced in 24kt gold.
I knew her in my childhood. She was
always old; her beauty worn to one side,
cut away with the cancer long before
I was born. Bartered in return for
the cold, hard currency of life.
Did she put the compact away then?
Is that why the tiny gold ledger
of stamped foil is still firmly affixed?
We lose things, have things cut away,
watch things evaporate like a swirl of
cloud in front of the moon.
We watch others have things
cut away, and the sun and moon
become their reflection; gold and silver
Shimmer and shine.
I will keep the compact.
©LSR 2010
