The Mount Methodist Jumble Sale

legs like dowel rods scuffed at the joins with big wet blanket coats or small ones leaving wind gaps at the throat grab hands the hands like mucky crabs or spiders we would snatch at silk and rayon to feel other peoples’ lives of corduroy and crimplene carrying our popcorn smell of unwashed beds and tidemarks like the one around the bath we never used because the cellos in the pipes in arctic blow and concave stomachs pimpling against the cold oh cover us over with blankets and coats a skirt that needs a tuck a button gone a blouse like Lisa had last year our bitten nails and hands and gloves hid up our sleeves we’d dream our different lives while grabbing crepes and ironed jeans that would not fit there’s lots of wear left there they’d say layering us up like pillows stuffed just so our angles wouldn’t hurt their eyes 'til we were smaller rounded parcels that reminded them of how they looked back in their dishonest memories of childhood and out we rolled wrapped in a dozen other peoples’ smells.