I've got bags of these at home
they take up space
but are much worth keeping
relics from my father's childhood
they whisper what I haven't heard
next to stacks of yellow comicbooks
I preserve these things
because he won't
even bear to try remembering
the pain of growing bigger in a house
that bled like the walls of a modern museum
for a touch his hands were slapped
as marbles plummeted down the hall
chasing his unborn future daughter
not yet a twinkle in his eye but
a gleam on the surface of this entertaining little sphere
