I used to collect them;
they gather a charge under pressure, piezoelectric
(I was proud to know the word),
semiprecious when clear, pink or green; mine were half an inch thick,
striated, unpopular, cheap enough to hoard.
In science museums and gift shops I learned to detect them
amid the stacks of greater souvenirs.
At the Smithsonian’s cavernous
Museum of Natural History, for example,
on the first floor, to the right, in the minerals hall
behind the apparently ravenous
wooden T. rex, I could pick out a thumb-sized sample
for the price of a Superball,
then wait in the rotunda with my peers,
sixth-grade boys and girls in puffy coats.
The girls put their hair up as if for a special occasion;
the boys slouched, weedy, scared.
The taxidermy elephant seemed to frown.
A few blocks down, the Democrats under Reagan
were trading away their votes;
they filed like visitors into the Senate, prepared
to watch the Great Society come down.