Snapshot poems from the junk drawer

I organized the junk drawer several months ago, as best as one can make sense of items that seemingly make no sense together. The assorted plastic compartments I purchased for this task impose order to this litany of items who will otherwise be homeless or fodder for the trashcan. Pens, lip glosses and toe nail clippers occupy a shallow berth side by side; recipes lay sauce-stained atop cat collars with tinkling bells. What do these items have in common? Not size, not function, and really the location of the junk drawer (in the kitchen) seems to betray the sense of having most of them in this particular room of the house. I decided to choose three random items and  to tell their poetic stories; to recreate the atmosphere of betrayal that overcomes the items relegated to this drawer–  the place where  things go to to be forgotten. Here follow remembrances of: the lip gloss, the silk change purse and the shoe polisher.

Lip gloss

You were mistrustful
of the pink prints
I left, smudging
honeyed gossip
on the glass

Change purse (a haiku)

Pink embroidery
revives Asian memories
two lonely yen left

Shoe polisher

From the posh hotel
stolen in the morning light
ensconced in the suitcase
to buff leather back to a shine
and cover up the lies of your
last season boots.