a collection of keys to no one's back door--
flea market sorcery and 
the search for a world war I bayonet

my father called me 
the antique princess-- throne
of beanie baby torsos & the piled
pocket knives of our dread grand fathers--
we collect doll eyes--
rusted keys to back doors
to no one's houses--
what will you find left of us here?
we're here to find a world war I
bayonet because that's what
you look for when you're 
looking for a way to talk
between stacks & stacks of records--
i don't like jazz but i can pretend to--
my father maneuvers each week
in an act of flea market sorcery--
a hex his tongue trained in talking
away prices-- turning antiques 
into love poems--
the flea market doesn't get enough
credit for being magical--
i practice
how many clip-on earrings 
can i fit on an ear lobe--
gaudy jewel eyes who
watch sun crawl over blankets--
i hide from him in a 
glass 1950s punch bowl-- i fill
it with PEZ dispensers
but the walls still smell
like a ladle of plum pudding
my grandmother might have once
baked--
flea markets remind me that 
there's nothing inherently
magical until you 
waltz in the aisle of it's
soul-- each wine glass
had a name or at least a wife
-- put your
lips there-- right there--
taste sangria on someone else's porch--
citronella candle insinerates mosquitoes &
you laugh about a joke
no one ever told you--
oh father what did we do to become 
knick-knacks?
was i the toucan or another
statue of a child praying by
a bed side?
the flea market smells
like the memories we elected
to part with--
it's the kind of realm where
only my father and i 
transcend-- feel my arms turn
back into a pocket watch--
he tells me that he
likes the flea market here
at Zerns because there are 
corners of the market that still smell
the same as they always have--
i go i go i go
right back  
my father ate cheese steaks on
the corner stool--
that's where he sat--
red stool blushed
from use
and so i take another hand full
of rusted keys--
a pocket of beanie baby eyes
as protection--
walk back outside
to test these keys on everyone's
back porches--
i'm looking for the screen
door to the house we once
lived in that smells different
to me know--
i'm looking for a door frame
made of pizza crust--
i'm looking for place guarded 
by world war I bayonets--
a door knob of clip-on
earrings-- we all become our own 
grandmothers in a flea market--
i'll make you plum pudding 
feed each other stale PEZ candies--
stop our watches--
eat cheese steaks 
from a blushing red stool--