Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

American Life in Poetry: ‘Yard Sale’

By Ted Kooser U.S. poet laureate, 2004-06

I’m devoted to yard and garage sales, and love to spend time with friendly strangers in scuffed front yards and oily, dim garages. Here’s a poem by Matthew Brennan, who lives in Indiana, from his 2016 Lamar University book, “One Life.”

Yard Sale

The renters bring out their greasy table,

End of the month again: It sags,

Weighted and warped like them, unable

To hold much more than glasses and rags.

Old clothes and rusty tools compete

For space with magazines they stole

From garbage bins behind our street;

Each shoe reveals a run-down sole.

A few come by, inspect, and leave,

Almost always with empty hands.

But when, at sundown, all things cleave

To slanted light, and when it lands

So rubber, glass, and metal glint—

And for a moment make you squint—

You’ll see our neighbors bathed in gold

As if their worth cannot be sold.

Poem copyright 2016 by Matthew Brennan, “One Life,” from Lamar University Literary Press, 2016. Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.