Bunch of Junk about Chrome


Remember when the world sparkled?  How
the gods shone with polish in bygone days,
their glistening munificence shellacking
their golden, self-damned heavens, layers

of enamel glossing over the nimbus
haloing you?  How light afoot you gamboled
through the iridescent drifts
of that kaleidoscopic fall?  How brilliantly

you played the glockenspiel & winked
at the scherzando& phooey!  How
would you ever take a shine to me? 
The me reflected everywhere,

from the Studebakers buff chrome bumpers
to the once popular stovepipe hats,
back then fashioned from silver & tin.
Against the glint of history, you stand apart,

your face inside the coin jar ever
beaming, ever radiant to this day,
untarnished by the change waxing over you
in a glimmering, shimmering heap.

                             --Matt Morris



From Nearing Narcoma, selected by Joy Harjo as winner
of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award

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