Whisky hourglass
I like the sound of that:
whisky hourglass

I want it to mean something
I want it to be the timepiece for five o’clock somewhere
or some tacky 70s bottle cutting craft
languishing in a second hand store
on the hard side of town
Something with memories too precious to trash
but not precious enough to keep

I want it to be from the night
somebody’s grandparents got drunk
and danced a whisky foxtrot
on the neighbour’s lawn and eventually died
but not before having several babies
who had babies
who were not particularly sentimental.

Because second hand stores on the hard side of town,
junk stores really– brick and mortar shopping carts
to gather in the stray moments
everyone else has forgotten–
never really sell anything

They are the kingdoms of old men
with perpetual 3 day beards.
the floors creak and a million lost mementos
pile in organic sculptures half in
half out of time and the whisky hourglass
shines there like a beacon, key
to a portal the cognoscenti know
opens in a mirror dimension stacked
with what has been lost: knowledge,
moments, kisses, childhood, loves, souls,
hope

No one shops there either.

Hugh Anderson wishes ideas would fall as persistently as the rain on Vancouver Island. Recent publications include Vallum, Cold Mountain Review, Sin Fronteras, The Poems in your Pocket collection and Sea and Cedar. He has been nominated twice for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web.