Short Sale

Short Sale

(“Judah said, ‘Brothers, what are we going to get out of killing our brother and concealing the evidence? Let’s sell him…’” Genesis 37:26, 27a)

Cash or credit,
credit or debit,
loan or purchase,
wallets and purses,
merchandise, to be
precise,
humans hanging by
shoe size along the
avenue.

Coats like tapestry,
swatches like elbow patches,
rainbow halos and
dad’s favorite boy.

How can we kill
flesh and blood?
We would rather sell
and get some good

Profit for our return.

Merchandise,
pay the price
for modern slaves
(far less graves)
sold for jealousy or
pleasure.

It does not matter,
haberdasher or tailor,
we market our brothers,
our sisters
like meat pies,
a thick slice of human dignity
lying in the pit waiting
another merchant with money to pay
our way; we pray we are not
misunderstood again.

II.

The sun sets across the bony landscape,
the fever of afternoon breaks with the sweaty evening breeze.
The tunes and wind-chimes whistle the sandstone
and we stand up to hear the next bid for our soul.

III.

You sold out too cheap as if the fashion had passed
and the next season’s garments could not fill the racks fast
enough. Blacks are in; relax, pay the tax and take it home.

Reds are passé, blues retrograde, with green in between
sawdust and the moon.

When the priceless are bought for an ad jingle’s song
the rest are marked down to sell before the doors close again.

IV.

Sizes vary, try them on to see. Colors fade, match in the mirror
before you lay the cash upon the table. Created with delicacy,
hand-made, hand-blown upon the morning sky, crowns replace fedoras,
rubies replace the replicas of dyed-in-the wool jewelry passed off as
one of a kind.

We are hand-made; may I remind you? We are the Master’s Mark,

Meant for celebrations on the meadows, not sale barns full of
auctioneers making a buck off another’s creation. We are poetry

Filling the aisles. We are portraits

Faced upon endgames. We are sonatas

Piped into the space-time-continuum. We are theater

Absurdly loved by the Author, Producer, Director;
wardrobe laid out by the Father

Who decreed His favorites must never be put up for sale.