There is a Line Drawn

A buyer of discards,
he took off our hands
(at his price) a sick calf,
a cow with a broken leg,
a gaunt sow with no appetite,
sometimes a worn disc
or discarded harrow,
abandoned but useful.
He made the rounds
every few weeks and rid us
of our accumulations we’d no need for.
A working farm shrugs off
useless, ill, worn-out, old
and out-of-date items without a qualm.
This dealer in our castoffs
cleaned us up and put a few
dollars in our pockets.
Once we tried to sell him
a pile of parts and pieces,
iron braces and castings,
residue of broken machines.
He recoiled in righteous
anger, ‘‘I ain’t no junk dealer.’’
And we learned of distinctions
we had never known before.