In the Goodwill

These clothes have stories
So does the teal giraffe
Boys and girls who want to look a certain way
The mother whose child is now too old
The father who is divorced
This place where one story is swapped for another
Broken, hopeful, some not even touched
And love threads itself still
Still, still, even here they whisper
It’s still here, even in the broken
Perhaps more easily seen in the broken

The frame that stayed too long in the closet
And the mother, who still thinks of herself as a young girl
Walking awkwardly down the hallway
Her backpack too heavy
Always on the out, hoping on getting on the in
Has put it away for the time she will finally make art
And now, now, she decides the art will just not happen
Funnily enough it’s when she’s dropped it off along with everything else
That the week after, quite spontaneously, she will start to draw
And once her own judgment moves aside just slightly
The lines start to flow, and bend, and dance
She thinks of her mother
Drawing at church
While the pastor, Mike, awkwardly drones on and on
And makes a bad joke about women screaming at mice
(I never scream at mice, she thought)
Her mother would be bent down, drawing spirals and circles and triangles
Because life always happens at the edge of what is happening