No Afterlife for Garbage

by JL Martindale

We have become hoarded things,
once loved so dearly that we re-glue
the fractured fragments and tell ourselves
that someday, the value will return.

And perhaps it will, with time, nostalgia mummified
in flaking newsprint, boxed, stacked in dark garages,
we will earn our resurrection by liquidation
where auctioneers re-label our trashy tchotchkes
rare, retro, collectible!

Horde-amnesia resurrects our forgotten failures
laughs and treasures our belly-flops as art.
These tacky broken things some day we will cherish
like novelty.