Memorious
 
ROUTE 1 NORTH WOOLWICH MAINE
   
Beside the shut lobster cart, the Dairy Queen,
 cracked enamel tubs, a sled, torn screens

that joggle in the wind.
            One cockamamie fork up on a ledge.

A forage-house, a crazed assemblage:
an oil-smeared curtain bellying in rain.

Even this junk shop claims to be for sale.
Even this junk shop comes apart. It splays

at lopsided angles where the sills
of the two half-farmhouses that formed it

separate. The porch buckles. Moldings sag.
The whole becomes components.

For sale for who?
No proper summer people will come paw.

The maples are already turning red.
Still, of each thing here someone has thought:

Don’t throw it yet. Someone might want it.
Someone might extract a value from the wreck.

Some artist, maybe.
In real life who’s got time to patch worn screens? 

For rescue anyway? But if someone comes
needing this smattered curtain, bless him.

May someone find a window in this wind.
If the bathtub holds water, let someone

reuse it as a planter for geraniums.
May anyone who likes to mend, come mend.