It is a game of monopoly.

We trade in chips as well as chips

On the shoulder, in words

As much as in the unsubtle mutations

Of meaning, profit and loss

In translation. We amass wealth

And vocabulary with the usual greed

(We haggle and become garrulous),

Or we build surpluses from the excess

Of others, of which we dispose

Not by trickle-down, nor First World

Largesse and nobless oblige, 

But to kill with laughter and cupidity

And the bottomless obfuscation

Of knowledge. In medias res we ask

Who are We? Consumer or consumed?

Ignoramus or heedful of caveat emptor?

Frenziedly we feed with Third World need—

Abject, starved, or as avid. As when,

Rummaging among the intimate

Odors of strangers, we ooh

And aah as we unearth the unused,

Pull rabbits from the milliner’s 

Hat we only see in royal weddings

On CNN. We show off the trophies

Of the bargain but gingerly hide

The snipped signature label, 

The slightly scuffed floor sample

(At its price, none the worse for wear),

The torn-away cover of last year’s 

Bestseller, the unmoving un-bought,

The un-haggled discounted,

The shiny discard, in another word.

But with inexhaustible skill

We re-stitch, reconstruct, recondition

That which we might sell back

Where the ukay-ukay are neither 

Monkeys scratching nor pirates digging

But shabby chic or genteel,

And the flea market is not rabid

But only antiseptic or antique

And the trip to the thrift store

Is merely slumming and amusement.

 

 

Marne Kilates

June 13, 2011

From Lyrical Objects 

(UST Publishing House, 2015)

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