Earrings, coins, buttons, boys.
Innumerable
forks, spoons, and knives.
I am lucky to still possess all ten toes.

My accent.
(I pick it up sometimes on the phone
and play with it.)

A small glass bulb containing one red flower
a gift for my mother that I purchased
with my own money.

I cried and bought another.
This still sits behind glass doors
at my parents’ house.

An entire paper cone of M&M’s
at age 6!
after my first keyboard recital.
Now that was crushing.

On a Glasgow pavement, when I was a little older,
my father’s camera. We were standing
outside the apartment he and my mother shared
before they were married. He
angrier than I had ever seen him
said something to me I have never forgotten
but I hope he has.
That camera belongs to me now
but my hands are bigger
and I have never let it fall.

Today’s little bit of doggrel inspired by my deep admiration for the Nokia company, which made a phone that has (so far, baruch hashem) managed to survive all my droppage. This afternoon — while talking to Ross, fumbling with change, and trying to get on the bus at the same time — I somehow managed to fling it out of my own hand and onto the sidewalk, where its front cover and back cover detached, the clever little card inside it popped out, and the keypad came loose from its moorings. I made it onto the bus, reassembled it with a click or three, and called Ross right back. Say what you will about modern manufacturing, they know how to make a damn fine cellphone.

Bonus points if you can see what I find so danged funny about the photograph up there, before clicking on it to read the answer.