A Thoughtful Poem -

Museum
Keith Leonard

I walked the three floors

of the local antique store

and imagined white plaques

adorning each room

-but unlike museums

I could touch the displays,

and could take a seat

at a beautiful walnut table-

I could wonder about the moment

its palm-stained patina

went from simply dirty

to expensively antique-that

singular moment the thing

became slightly more

than a thing by simply

continuing to be

the very same thing-all its cracks

thick as the edge of a quarter-

all its smoothed over corners-

all its dark knots flourishing-

and I thought I could live

for awhile in this very

same body-and did, somehow,

and was loved, somehow,

into a third body, which totters

across the living room,

and whose knees I kiss

when he stumbles,

and the difference between

just now and not

is an aperture's quick snap-

is breath-delicate-

it must have been Luck

-I see it-that saddled me,

the blind horse rising

and falling as the carnival

blared from the brass pipes,

as the carousel twirled

its crown of lights,

and one by one the bulbs

went dark-and so it is,

this life-this goddamn

lucky life-the organ

sounding off the melody,

the platform winding down,

and the horses still bounding.

About this poem
"On a rare day, I'm reminded how paper-thin and tearable existing is-the aneurysm, the cancer, the errant car jumping the curb-and such chance mortality both terrifies me and fills me with gratitude, since many of those I love are still here, somehow, and I'm still here, somehow. This poem was written on one of those grateful days." -Keith Leonard

About Keith Leonard
Keith Leonard is the author of "Ramshackle Ode" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.