What Made It To The Yard Sale

The elevator doll

Made it to the yard sale

It’s a doll dressed like

One of those men

That used to stand inside elevators

Not the ones who were employed to do so

The ones who did it for fun

Creeps, I believe they’re called

There was one in our building

When I was growing up

And my father’s policy on him was--

If he looks at you

Scream

When I got older, I asked my father

Why he didn’t just report the man

And my father told me

That part of living in the city

Was accepting the fact

That you were always five feet away

From certain death

If we lived in the jungle

Would you expect me to report the lions?

He said that and then took a stroke

So those ended up being his last words

I’m not sure how I got the doll

But I think it was something I picked up

At a flea market

On the Upper West Side

Back when they had flea markets there

Instead of just Satanic cocktail parties

Have you ever been

To a Satanic cocktail party?

The drinks are godawful

But the conversation is divine

Just don’t use that word

While you’re there

I bop around

That’s what I do

Nobody bops anymore

It’s hard enough to get anybody

To go to one place

Let alone several

Let alone several in a night

Let alone to a basement in the Village

Where a man is making his own sausage

And telling you all about how he escaped

From prison

Speaking of sausage

There are two separate machines

You can use to make them

Grinders, they’re called

And they’re out at the yard sale

You know, when I moved out of the city

I had to get rid of so much

And then I sort of got used to it

The ridding

And I found I liked it

So now I do it all the time

But no matter how much I throw away

I keep finding more and more

Like this urn with ashes in it

Who could it possibly be?

All of my relatives were buried

So I know it’s none of them

And the only person I can remember

Being cremated

Is John Updike

The vetererian not the author

But I doubt it’s him

Because he hated an open flame

In a small space

Which is a very specific fear

But one that would definitely prevent you

From agreeing to cremation

Also, John was a very small man

And there’s so much ash here

It just doesn’t seem like him

But I’ll put it out in the yard sale

In case anybody is missing a relative

And wants to pretend it’s them

The scrapbooks didn’t make it out there

Not this time

But I know sooner or later

I’ll have to part with them

The trouble is I don’t know how much to ask

For photos of people

Nobody’s ever met before

I never even met them

I just took photos of people on the bus

And then put them behind plastic

Assuming that one day

It would be considered rather romantic

Instead of creepy

Like the man in the elevator

Everyone who lives in the city long enough

Gets creepy in their own way

Which is maybe why my father

Never wanted to call the authorities on that man

Or on the cheetah that lived on the roof

Of our apartment building

I think that’s where he got his jungle metaphor from

But you never can tell

Boy, it sure is filling up out there

I hope it all sells

So I can buy more like it

And then sell that as well

It’s the selling and the buying I enjoy

And the camaraderie between me, the seller

And the people buying

And the smell of the grass on the yard

And the sound the elevator man makes

When you twist the little wheel on his back

When you do that

‘You’re the Top’

Starts to play

Isn’t that so...creepy?

I don’t know who’s going to buy him

But I can promise you this--

Somebody will