The Heiress

The ghost of the dead heiress
hovers anxiously over the crowd of bargainers below
Who rifle through her dusty hat boxes,
mothy mink coats, sour-smelling bathroom curtains
and unmailed Christmas cards

"Fifty cents?" an onlooker haggles
while Her Majesty bites ethereal lips overhead.
Another barters two bucks for her umbrella,
the one with the crystal-laden handle
she bought in Paris in 1929

Like the grimy recipe cards strewn on the floor,
she collapses in their midst dramatically.
The heiress's estate is picked over by these wretches,
her earthly possessions divied out
in effortless Saturday afternoon transactions.

Sobbing invisibly from above
the ghost knows that her decadent umbrella
will never again smell of the Paris rain
or shelter her frigid skin
from the unforgiving elements


This poem was written for Jingle's Poetry Potluck--the prompt this week was "Trips, Travels, and Vacations."  Visit her page for more wonderful entries!