“Take it,” Aunt Tillie insisted.
 
We sat side by side, our bare legs
sticking to her plastic-wrapped couch
in that hot apartment on 34th Street.
 
“An heirloom,” Aunt Tillie said,
shoving the ornate tray in our laps.
“To pass down to your children.”
 
Who had absolutely no interest
forty years later, to waste even
a minute with a polishing cloth.
 
So Aunt Tillie’s silver tea set
goes to Goodwill
along with my vintage china.
 
Aunt Tillie had been so sure
generations would treasure
the chance to entertain in elegance.
 
But she spent her life, like I did,
accumulating things that would one day
be dumped for a tax donation.  
 
Unloading my car, I see I am not alone.
So many others my age, discarding
knickknacks we once thought we needed
but now wish to unstick from our skin
like the plastic on Aunt Tillie’s couch.


© by Jacqueline Jules.
Used here with the author’s permission