not brand new

The man at the 

hardware store 

tells me,

brand new, 

the thing I need

will cost an amount

greater than 

the smudged sum

in my checkbook,

but I live in

Machine World

with rules I

cannot ignore,

to wit: disrepair 

is not an option,

which is why

today I trace

the topography

in this junkyard,

and follow an

outcropping of

consumer sediment

which the woman

in the shack by the gate

told me might contain

the fossil I seek –

not brand new—

it’s a sad stratigraphy

of discarded dreams

and relic prosperity,

mounded moraine

deposited here by

the endless freeze

and thaw gripping

the material world:

a window sill

air conditioner

stripped of copper,

an assortment of hub caps

made for cars long ago

thrown into the lake of fire,

a Maytag washer

rusting behind the

wizard’s curtain,

and a hundred other things

I hold into sunlight

at every possible angle

before tossing them back

to finish their journey

to the sea

without me.