The man who comes while we are still setting up
and asks if we have any firearms or ammunition
how my mother sits in a rocking chair in the shade
waiting for someone to cart away her sorrows
then when she stands, we smirk at the five-dollar
sticker on her rear end, but say nothing. Go home
now, find what you have to sell, dust off your
worries and place it on wabbly folding tables
on your driveway, nothing and everything will make
sense. Make signs and post them strategically around
town. There is someone looking for what you never had,
be kind to those who come, listen when they tell you
how their grandmother had a mixing bowl like yours,
how she made the best macaroons, offer her a tissue,
five dollars off, this is therapy, sell her something else
something she didn’t know she needed, but does.
When she takes the sticker from your mother’s backside,
don’t look away keep a straight face, keep a straight face.
Rebecca Schumejda is the author of several full-length collections includingFalling Forward (sunnyoutside press), Cadillac Men (NYQ Books), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press) and Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books). Her latest book Something Like Forgiveness, which features collages by Hosho McCreesh, is available from Stubborn Mule Press. She is the co-editor at Trailer Park Quarterly. She received her MA in Poetics from San Francisco State University and her BA from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. www.rebecca-schumejda.com