The Collector

 

She collects old bottles that she

finds buried in her garden,

and places them on a windowsill.

When the sun shines in, her kitchen

is filled with a kaleidoscope of colors –

blues and greens and browns. Bottles

from old remedies for headaches and

stomach aches, laundry bleach, and ketchup.

Smooth bottles, square bottles, tiny bottles,

one that still has a piece of rotting cork

in its neck. Bottles that tell a story of hard work

and pain. She feels like an archeologist discovering

a lost way of life through the colored glass

detritus of another generation, and she wonders what

future generations will think of her when they

uncover the bits of her life left behind.

 

Haunted