PAD 27-3 Remix

Carnival Glass Tea Cup

My first memory as a little carnival glass tea cup

was at a fair. I could hear the noises of the merry-go-round,

the men calling out to potential game players/money spenders,

and excited children laughing, and calling out to each other.

Being tiny I couldn’t see much of these things.

I sat by glasses and cups much bigger than me.

I could hear the clink of the coins as they hit their sides.

“Ouch that hurt! Don’t throw them so hard! Oh, that one tickled!”

Then I saw  him. The red-headed kid about twelve years old.

He tossed a few nickels then bingo! it went inside me,

rolled around and it did tickle until it rested on the bottom.

I was snatched up and the boy they called Jim took me home.

I sat in a cozy home on the shelf for many years.

watching Jim’s large rowdy family. Then one day I turned up

at his daughter’s home.  I could tell she liked me a lot.

I sat on her favorites shelf for years watching her write.

But one day, sadly, she packed me up in a cardboard box.

Someone was moving in and she needed space.

So I sat for years in the dark until the flood came.

I thought I’d drown or freeze in the cold water but the flood abated.

I was put in a bag, in a big truck and hauled off to be sorted out

with thousands of other moldy items in large bags.

I was eighty-five years old, stashed away in a stinky mess.

I knew she was worried and I wondered if she’d ever find me.

And then one day I was put in another box.

I took the long ride back to her house.

All of a sudden, the box opened and there she was

with a relieved look on her face.

Now I sit happily on the living room bookshelf,

watching her and her husband’s comings and goings.