My Silver Wind tricycle needs

the rain to remind its rusted wheels

of speed. Sitting since childhood

in the garage of memory,

it receives dust’s thin epitaph

for having been on Earth.

Pencils from my jackknife pencil box

sleep their lead away in a plastic

communal grave somewhere

in the basement of forgotten 

supplies and window screens that long

for the rust wind brought them.

All those old Reds and White Sox 

ball caps, cotton and wool,

lying about the closet of things gone

keep trying, when I open

the door, to be more than the broken

duck bills they are; two cereal box rings,

a Roy Rogers saddle and a Captain

Midnight decoder have lost most

of their power to make me throw

my leg over a broom and ride off

into the sunset behind

Copyright by Ron Houchin.
Used with the author's permission.