By Rebecca Baggett 

My muse is an old bag lady,
who turns up every morning, grocery cart
heaped with rubber boots, starfish,
hula hoops, ruby vases, tattered children’s
books, ballet slippers, rhinestone pins,
and a fur stole with a fox head at one end,
expecting me to make a poem.

What am I supposed to do
with all this random crap? I ask.
Did I mention that one wheel
of her cart is catawampus, so it makes
a loud kerchunk kerchunk
as she maneuvers it up my drive
and into my living room, where she
insists on parking?

She shrugs, slumps into the recliner,
lights a cigarette.
                                   It’s your life,
lamb. I’m just collecting it.

Rebecca Baggett is the author of The Woman Who Lives Without Money, which will be published by Regal House Publications in 2022. She is also the author of four poetry chapbooks. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Sugar House Review, the Southern Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Salt. She lives in Athens, GA.