Hotel Godiva

This is the store to buy the strange
and the old and their hopeless kin:
dead schoolgirls' sweaters, shoes rejected
by Elvis, miniature porcelain fish
angrily carved, held aloft
by black, strong string. We who have given
away our minds, been betrayed
by the bitter coasts, search now
through the belongings of others.
These mapped, blue and green walls
become our eco-system, a thrift lighthouse
of stuff lived in by drunken movie stars,
dandies named Barney, his great aunts,
their dark mauve skirts faded
from trips up the stairs, they who mend
the insane and the weak, us,
we who plow through the circular racks,
grabbing disco bric-a-brac over 50's rayons,
knowing, deep in our addled souls,
that we'll buy instead the goldfish platforms,
black, scraped buckle and all.
These clothes are tested and sound;
scarred from past falls or misuse, but true
and tireless, as with our second spouses' hands.
We seek connections, a participatory democracy
of textiles and no-longer-chic shapes and shirts,
ruins dismissed on many Sundays,
traces of rouge on lapels, dead labels,
maybe tiny burnholes now vivid,
small perfect eyes that know exactly
when wars ended, when to go next door
to borrow slim, white leather gloves,
gaps easily sewn with re-cycled thread,
re-made paisleys and plaids now ours
for pool halls and weddings, parties
of patchy dreams, half joyous
that we will never again be as alone.