The Auction


Hesitating in the unfamiliar door,
We peer in at endless piles
Of what passes for antiques
And we read the sign chalked on the board
Which promises "Auctions Every Firday,"
And we laugh and wonder if that means
There never is an auction
Since we never heard of a day named after an evergreen.



We find the toy train that we have heard about
From our friend who never yet has missed a sale
And we decide it really has no value
And that we will spend
No more than ten dollars for it.
Sighing, we realize
That we have ten or twenty minutes to kill,
So we peruse the other cast-offs halfheartedly
And find none that beckons to us.



We settle down on old abandoned school chairs
To watch, instead, our fellow treasure seekers
And we see that our business clothes have made us strange
And mark us as outsiders:
Old men in tattered overalls
And tired-looking women in dirty jeans
Eye each item on the floor and tables
And then search their meagre pockets
To see which they can afford.



The unfamiliar chant of the auctioneer
Draws us to the center of the room
And we watch in fascination as bids are made
And junk we never thought would sell is sold,
Though it goes for pennies.
And we smile to ourselves
And keep our hands safely in our pockets,
Waiting for the toy train that will be ours
For half of what we expected.



The sale grows long and we shuffle our feet,
Uncomfortable to be standing so long,
But unwilling to risk the loss of the train
If we are not there to hear the bids.



At last it is handed up
And we press forward eagerly,
Only to hear that the opening bid is ten dollars,
And to realize that the train will never be ours,
For we know its worth and will never bid so high.
Astonished, we hear the bids go to fifty and beyond,
And we turn and leave.



Who would have thought that people
Who seemed so in need of bread
Would spend so much for a toy?


Saralyn McAfee Smith
Written in 1978