Part of Me
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

I have a bin of toys and a bin of musical instruments
in the living room. One has things, like an old Etch-a-Sketch,
a blue, felt elephant on wheels you can roll across the floor,
an old Fisher-Price camera with ready-made pictures
of farm animals in the viewfinder, shark bubble-shooters,
and, of course, purple and green bottles of bubbles–complete with wands.
There’s a bendy-gorilla, a couple of those things you press down,
then wait for them to pop up into the air, there’s a cow that moos
when you tip it, the boardgame “Candyland,” and a deck of go-fish cards,
among other things. The instrument box is full
of little tambourines—one even has faded, blue, pink, and green
streamers attached, there are multiple shakers—some shaped like
eggs, some like pears, some like giraffes, others like rhinos,
there are kinds like the ones Davey Jones played while singing
“I’m a Believer,” on the Monkees TV show,
there are hand-held blocks of wood with sandpaper glued to one side,
there are claves of various sizes, a couple leather straps of Christmas-bells,
among other things. And they’re always there, ready
for the playing, and they remind me, when I see them,
that part of me will happily forever be a child.