The world was full of things it was not full of.
It was normal to know of the abnormal, common
To know of rarities. That there were things unusual
Was the usual state of affairs, and yet the weird
Remained just that and there was no ordinary didn't
Contain the extraordinary that defined it. Hard frost
Silvered the garden gate and split the irrigation lines.
Hard frost gave way to sun and wind, then only sun
And tourists eating lunch at Oscar's Cafe, including
The fellow who asked that the onions on his burger
Be put through a blender as he could only love them
Puréed. "I'll bet no one ever asked you that before!"
He fairly boasted to the bemused server whose face
Bore an expression suggesting many weirder unique
Requests had been made. Uniquely weird is not so
Special, pal. We took our snacks down to the river,
Fine sands redistributed over sunwarmed sandstone,
The once and future dunes. A thin dime scraped
From the mud dumplings body and daughter made
To throw in the water bore the unlikely date 1956.
Had you predicted a dime of that date would emerge
From the sand of this afternoon you would have been
Wrong except when you were right, quite implausibly,
To say the least, yet nothing in the slightest extraordinary
About a warm spell in this canyoned desert in January,
A tourist with a goofy demand, a dime minted
Sixty-odd years ago popping out of the sand.
Body made a wish, highly unlikely to succeed,
And threw the dime in the stream. The world remained
So full of things it was nearly emptied of.
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