In the thrift store, the shelves shine dully with brass,
Old candelabras and cups that could serve in ritual,
If they were not made so poorly and marketed so cheaply.
I first found these thin, yellow, sheet-metal creations
Stacking the shelves in my grandmother’s trailer.
Under the grime, the settled oily sheen of air freshener, there rested
Chalices into which even a king would sneeringly spit the epithet “rococo!”
There must have been a hundred million other such trailers,
A hundred million places of honor for stamped yellow tin.
Why gather them up? Why give them cult?
The entire dragon’s hoard seems now to have found its way to goodwill,
While the real versions of these ghostly trinkets sit heavy upon altars and windowsills.
Volunteers must weigh them, each in hand, and make some distinction:
Did this aid in worship? Was this treasure?
Or was it only treasure enough? Butter-smooth placebo
For those who found themselves in an endless dry spell of weekdays,
Unpunctuated by the sort of holiness that Normal People
Crave and crave and never attain.