THRIFT SHOP
BY AMANDA AUCHTER

Across the room, light rattles in
through windows, drowns in a barrel
of toys. I tap glass, pick up a watch,

a garnet ring, the fox tail fur draped
over a walnut trunk. I shake a china doll
and the eyes rattle inside the head.

This reminds me of home: beds lined
with broken things (stuffed animals
reworked with Mother's tablecloths,

button mouths, a threadbare rabbit).
I pocket a postcard from De Moines,
a place I once left a lover. Butterflies

pin to cork, sweaters unravel, a piece
of string forgets the hemline, a button
the blouse. I tell the woman in line

I found Marilyn's comb here last week.
She knows this is a lie, but buys a dress
she cannot zip. Hats tip from the stump

of a headless dummy, graze the red coat
I left here on Tuesday. It's still on
the mannequin, wearing the brooch

I thought I'd never love. Someone
unclips it from the lapel, shrugs
the coat off the limbless body.

I trail her past sweaters, a shelf of boats
built inside bottles. The register rings,
the door opens into early evening.

My hands remember the pockets on
that coat: lighter inside, the ticket to
the last movie my brother and I ever saw.