Junk Drawer
How it never yielded easily,
always jammed, always pulling
stubbornly to one side;
how it measured in this way
the insistence of your curiosity.
How it never seemed
to be full, always accepted
more and more, making room
within its shallow walls
for another stack of coupons,
restaurant matchbooks,
the padlocks without keys.
How you rarely found
whatever it was you were
searching for, there among
the spools of thread, the nails
and tape and bric-a-brac,
the random broken fixtures
and wires, toys and gadgets that
no one could now remember.
How it accepted your small hand,
fumbling blindly, making space
among the lost and forgotten.
How you inevitably walked away
with something, something
you did not know the name of,
something whose only purpose
in that moment was to be held
and carried at your side,
a thing of wonder once again.
by Greg Watson
Editor’s Note: This poem fools the reader into thinking it’s talking about a junk drawer, but the true narrative emerges with the last few lines.
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