Secondhand

“But don’t we live on in what we’ve left behind?
…Don’t these become
a kind of museum of the afterlife?” ~ Linda Pastan

Tightly packed bales of clothing ship
off to mostly third world countries,
overseas— our castoffs, excesses,

last season’s outfits no longer hip;
or items now too small for rapidly
growing children— they’ll sell

for less but others will rejoice
at how much life there still is
in a well-soled boot, the good

waxed canvas of a coat with which
to spurn the everlasting rain;
and every now and then the flash

of a label someone recognizes has some
glittery value from these our worlds,
which shed before they’ve even cooled

their overlay of perishing desires.

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