Yard Sale

by Ben Stoll

art by Camille Corot, 1865

Eighty dollars.
To a child: a King’s ransom.

I see the price tag dangle from hemp string,
the glass figures cut the sunlight
and slice it across the checkerboard.

They look like diamonds however,
strong enough to cut my teeth on.
With no one looking I take a pawn

and bite.

I collect my broken teeth
and tumble them in the sand by the stream.

8 years old, cuticles rubbed raw and bleeding,
with running water and riverbed quartz
I will wear down those broken pieces of enamel

and make an ivory gem.

I take it and make a necklace,
with my shoestrings,
then I’ll barter for that chess set.

Bone is expensive,
isn’t that why they kill the elephants?

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