Chance, as always. Sudden
rain & a street without
awnings. Open double-doors
nearby, the room beyond
gaslit. A small hand-painted
plaque, Maximilian Planck’s
Wunderkammer, read in
passing, interpreted inside.

*

A personal museum, small
as they always are. Once might
have been a doctor’s surgery or
a dance studio. Not even a shop.
Windowless. A widow’s pension-
eking pittance, the widow’s mite.

*

He’d seen them before. Usually
military, the bits left over from
a life that was never shared. Medals
& Mauser bullets, though never the
one that got them in the end — if
they died that way. Most caught
the pox or plague, or fell from
their horse in a drunken stupor.

*

This one medical. Abnormal an-
atomical specimens on shelves
against the back wall. Inherently
dangerous. Jars full of alcohol. The
spluttering sconces on the wall.

*

Had seen better. Had friends
at St Bartholomew’s.

*

But still, but still. The
honesty of the items
stopped his heart. For a
moment, for this moment.
Later, as he thought about
them, it would happen again.

*

He knows there will be one
time it will stop forever.

Mark Young’s most recent books are Songs to Come for the Salamander: Poems 2013-2021, selected & with an introduction by Thomas Fink (Meritage Press & Sandy Press); Your order is now equipped for shipping (Sandy Press); & The Advantages of Cable (Luna Bisonte Prods).

You can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.