Route 128, Georgetown, Maine
Near the lobster cart, the Dairy Queen, cracked enamel tubs, a sled, torn screens that joggle in the wind. One cockamamie fork up on a ledge. A forage-house, a cracked assemblage: An oil-smeared curtain blowing in the rain. Even this junk shop claims to be for sale. Even this junk shop comes apart, and splays at crooked angles where the sills of two half-farmhouses that formed it separate. The porch cracks and moldings sag. The whole becomes components. And for sale for who? No proper summer people will come paw: (The maples are already turning red.) Still, of each thing here someone has thought: Don’t throw it yet. Someone might want it. Someone might extract a value from the wreck. Some artist, maybe. In real life who’s got time for salvaged screens? For rescue, anyway? But, if someone comes who needs an oil-stained curtain, bless him. May someone find a window in this wind. If the bathtub holds water, let someone re-use it as a planter for geraniums. May anyone who likes to mend: come mend.