Mixed Media

By Hannah Jane Weber

I’m in an old flea market,
a magic dump of a place at the end of a gravel road.

I find a jar of buttons carved from my family tree,
reach into the murky glass to grab a few,
and watch them rain against the floor when my fingers let go.

One shelf is filled with quilts,
scraps of fabric cross-stitched by Mom’s hands,
costumes Great-Granny found during her travels,
piles of dirt-crusted scarab beads.

Toys line the edges of another shelf;
beat-up matchbox cars and trucks ride the lip, motors revving,
ready to race into my brother’s smug hands.

Grandma’s ancient ice-cream scoop, heavy as a weapon,
rests on a teetering tower
of Grandpa’s discarded cigar boxes
packed with broken crayons shaped by my hands.

A bell jingles and Dad, wearing his crisp white suit, strides in.
A journal drops into his hands.
It is mine.

When he opens my journal,
it trills with Joan Sutherland’s vibrato.
It isn’t the jazz he’ll play at work tonight, and it disappoints him.
He snaps my journal shut and tucks it into his breast pocket.

He leaves and the flea market disappears,
his suit sweeping polyester clouds across the sky’s canvas.

It’s such a beautiful day, I decide to take a walk.
I walk until my feet are tired and the brushstrokes
I make with each step are the only things I recognize.

Hannah Jane Weber’s poetry has been published in I-70 Review, The Phoenix, Plainsongs, The Poeming Pigeon, Ponder Review, Rosebud, Slippery Elm and more. She is also a recipient of the Dylan Thomas American Poet Prize. Hannah Jane is a children’s librarian and tennis enthusiast. She lives with her husband and their dogs.