“Why I Held Onto My Marbles” by Sean Lause

1.
Because they were religious, useless,
fragile and fearless.

2.
Because they circled the world,
and took the form of my summer dreams.

3.
Because whoever invented marbles
must have believed angels were round.

4.
Because the chipped ones were more beautiful.

5.
Because the distance of their journeys
were an exact equation of space and time.

6.
Because there were rules.

7.
Because they were earth, sun, moon and stars
cupped in the palm of one hand.

8.
Because they spun the sun into diamonds,
and sparkled like snake eyes in the winter moon.

9.
Because when they surrounded me,
I was safe from armies of sadness.

10.
Because a pretty girl once blew on my cat's eye
and made it glow.

11.
Because a purie contains emotions
it took me thirty years to comprehend.

12.
Because when I found them again
in my aging parents' basement,
buried under old Christmases
and half a life of loss and illusion,
they remembered.