Sunday Sales

By K. Andrew Turner

Creeping morning light spills
like percolated coffee into suburban streets.
Cardboard signs say “Yard sale this way”
in thin-lined sharpie.
They entice no buyers.

Trinkets, VHS’s, junk, discarded life
proliferates cracked and peeling tables.
Boxes of worn toys, 50 cents each.

A man and woman sulk behind the tables.
A grubby child sits sullen on the concrete porch.
A girl looks through the splotched window
toward the strangers, a stuffed rabbit
forgotten in her hand.
Few peer into stained cardboard.
Plucking random, unwanted treasures,
and put them down again.
An old, pilling sweater is bargained
for, along with a tape
and three alphabet blocks oiled
by years of dirty, sticky fingers.
“I’ll take these for two dollars.”
The man agrees.
The woman knows
those who yardsail want discards
for next to nothing.