This time when you come you’re not
a thing lost, not broken or recently fixed—
you don’t break or fix me.
Now you’re harmless.
Now, you’re a glove-boxed
ice scraper in south Georgia,
a post hole digger,
birdseed scattered
to a city of squirrels. Now,
when you appear out of nowhere
on the ginkgo-lined street
of my memory, it’s autumn
and bright yellow, and you
are a used stereo (Works!),
a duck-adorned paper towel holder
and good-as-new crock pot.
You are hope and regret—
all good intentions and someone’s
newest treasure, no thing
to give a thought to,
oiled tool in some
handy person’s dark shed,
and yet here you are, come
from the ethers to tell me
there is some other thing
for emptying and for filling
to settle the shape of my hand
and what it might hold,
demitasse chipped and matchless,
painted finely in delft blue.