FROM GOODWILL
Elisavietta Ritchie
Mostly stainless steel gussied up
like real silver, they glitter through
their nicks, flecks of rust, bent prongs.
What doesn't shine may even be sterling.
Greyed, tinged blueblack, camouflaged
as if ashamed of how it's fallen.
Yet an old duckess hit by hard times
might just polish up....Discreetly, I spit
on the bowl of one dingy spoon, rub until
my finger turns black, the spot emits a shy gleam.
Illegible symbols on the back of the shaft
hint lineage, simplicity intimates taste.
Each piece in the bin costs 25 cents.
At home, it takes hours' worth of my time
to find polish, pry up childproof caps,
scour first with brass polish, then gunk
for silver. Fingers aching, I buff
the whole spoon to a dull, very dull, glow.
Most silver's gone. How many washings, how many mouths,
and whose....New: a shimmering gift to a long-ago bride.
Worn thin: hand-me-down to a fourth daughter's dowry.
Too drab to join my Grandmama's matched set adorned
with curlicues, monograms, every piece radiant, unscratched.
Yet I can't relegate this -- prize -- to the kitchen.
So it stays in my cluttered study where I allow
only poets, exiles and refugees, my tarnished familiars,
friends with unfortunate histories, a story to tell.
