As dissatisfied shopper William Butler Yeats noted, "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." This week's winners in our Shelter Ode contest aren't odes at all. From Matthew Kirby comes this poem, rant, epistle, anti-ode, and terrible limerick all in one:

				DEAR MAGNETIC PAPER TOWEL DISPENSER

		Dear magnetic paper towel dispenser,
		Might not your grip upon my fridge be somewhat tenser?
		It’s not just that you fall, but when you do you dislodge all
		My magnetic spice jars and suctioned cleanser.

		--Matthew Kirby

And here's an elegy from Marina Wilson :

				The Nature of Things

		but nature is not constructed
		each drawer fitting 
		squarely into an immense and intricate dresser
		nature is made of lines that curve

		what do I know about nature  or things anyway
		only that I am not a piece of furniture
		and each day is a way of struggling 
		not to fit
		not to be stuffed with socks
		with some old man’s holey shorts
		not to take on the mothball scent 
		of someone else’s matter

		here is the matter—when we were younger
		we scratched our initials 
		on the pine bed frame with its kid sheets
		and then on the dresser with the kid clothes inside
		what happened to those kids 
		with their large, inquisitive heads
		what happened to their clothes
		did we give away our childish forms
		or just the lace-fringed dress
		the brown pants we were once so embarrassed to wear

		tell me again what this has to do with time
		tell me again what this means: to fit into
		tell me again what happened to them 
		the ones we called ourselves
		
		--Marina Wilson

Matt and Marina will each receive five bucks for fresh flowers or freshly sharpened pencils. Thanks again to all who submitted poems. (SGH)

Photo: Bnt-SaiF via Flickr