When we moved to town, we were in walking distance
Of the sale barn, the place of cardboard boxes
Full of stuffed animals, cattle for auction, popsicles,
Rows of tin sheds full of okra, corn and blackberries, overalls,
Blackened cooking pots and strange tools like rusted weapons.
I remember the Jolly Green Giant stuffed doll
I got for a dime and a gray rabbit whose tail fell off
Before I got it home, and I glued it in backwards.
Anything could be had at the sale barn. Anything
Could happen in this bazaar of rural Oklahoma, 1972.
–Shaun Perkins
The sale barn in Locust Grove is still active, though not not particularly thriving like it was when I was young. The animal auction has been gone for a long time. I think the barn burned down. The tin sheds are all still there, but for some reason, the sellers don’t use them and instead set up out in the sun. I will be hiding a poem cache there soon. Poem cache, you say? What is that? Go to the ROMP sister site: POEMCACHE.COM and find out.
