what’s in yours?
WHAT’S IN MY JUNK DRAWER
A rubber-band sphere of emotion.
Two black and whites of me walking
in blue seersucker on Santorini, age ten.
The rainbow swirled super-ball that left a ding
in the ceiling of our first apartment in Baltimore.
Heinous thoughts of my best friend in sixth grade
telling me she had found someone else.
Two pair of tortoise shell glasses
I can’t see through anymore.
The verbal slap across the face
from Mlle Marechaux freshman year.
Six packs of spare buttons in mini-manila envelopes.
A thin gold band from a first marriage, discarded.
The stuffed bunny I won at “guess your age” on the midway.
Three Valentine’s Day cards from the year we were engaged.
Wadded up feelings from the year
Mama left us when I was thirteen.
The positive pregnancy-test declaring
my twenty-three year old son.
One pearl earring, grieving for her mate.
The detritus of fifty-five years in the swamp of life.
Anni Macht Gibson
life: acoustic & amplified 