Buttons and loose string from last season's

winter jacket

two pennies and ime from that

cheap pizza parlor

a worn ace of spades, with a dog-eared

upper-left hand corner

chipped costume jewels

feathers from thirty-nine species of birds

a lock of hair, torturously soft and sweet

smelling

it puts your pressed flowers to shame

wilted and shriveled

spindly and mishappen

they seem to collapse in on themselves

against all intent, they could not hold on

to spring

mere echoes of gardens long gone

briny glass shards

not quite velvety sea shells but,

almost

both have been claimed by the sea,

have they not?

both collected by the rolling tide,

have they not?

But if something is merely collected,

Is it truly mine?