Click here for a reading by the poet
It was a shopper’s paradise this Spring Day
We neighbors unpacked what we once packed away
And spread stuff on tables and lawns just turned green
So all offerings could clearly be seen.
There was my junk, their junk, kid’s junk, too,
old games, tattered books, a few things new.
When a boy, no more than 7, rode up on his bike—
tiny gorilla tucked in his belt, nearly out of sight.
He was a “collector of gorillas,” he explained to me,
It was our stuffed, brown gorilla he came to see.
The gorilla once guarded my now-grown daughter’s bed—
and having completed that mission,
was looking for new work
at a different homestead.
“How much is the gorilla?”
“50 cents,” I said, “but, the price has been slashed, for you, it’s a quarter instead.”
A look of pondering and sorry came over his face.
“I only have 7 cents to take the gorilla from this place.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” I said with a grin,
“7 cents is the selling price to take him home, my friend.”
The boy was off in a flash on his bike,
to take the stuffed, brown gorilla to his home that night.
I made 50 dollars on the yard sale that day,
but the “7-cent sale”—
it was the best, far and away.
D.J. Haslett
Copyright 1999
Audio Engineer: Scott Miller of Exit7a.com