Pick ups

This is just a desk we found
on the curb, abandoned
for one reason or another:
We scrape the paint - finish,
re-finish with pine oil
and touch of hands.

That is a rug left by the last tenant
because he wanted a new one:
We wash it, smooth it, and turn it
into a companion of the desk
next to the lamp from the garbage.

Those stiff joints and muscles from
forgotten season are picked up by
a glance:
We rub them with eucalyptus
and menthol at night,
bath them with lavender
in warm water in the morning.

These are pick ups
of things nobody wants,
now become our pleasures:
a poem written on the desk,
a massage of withering bodies on the rug,
a transfiguration of abandonment into
the love of hands.

1992 New York