My Father's Marble Collection      Hundreds

Every single one gone      Even the gray ones
         the color of his eyes      The black one
         carved from coal shade of his hair
Agates      Cat's-Eyes      Clickers      Mag-Lites      Slags
         Ribbons      Spanners      Onyx      Back to Sand
We should never have bought the slingshots
We should never have traded for baseballs
We should never have tried to float them
         in the tar pit near Cuming Street
We should never have gone double or nothing
We should never have borrowed Bud Miller's
         sledgehammer
We should never have looked up the word
         OPHTHALMOLOGY when Mary Davis
showed us her collection of China dolls
We should never have built the campfire
We should never have discovered the robin's nest
We should never have studied sign language
We should never have followed the railroad
         track to the Saddle Creek trestle
We should have learned how a sundial works
We should have heard the tone in our mother's
         whisper
We should have avoided the ice-cream truck