In this house,
above all houses,
there is order.

There is order
in the hamper.
There is order
in the drain trap
and at the bottom
of the garbage disposal.
The compost heap
decays in step
with a timer.

Even in the bowls
of chaotic potpourri,
there’s order. 

This is no place
you’d expect to find a junk drawer,
yet there it is:  right where
it always is in every other house,
in the kitchen, top drawer
below the most-used cabinets
and close to the most-used door.

This
is Martha Stewart’s junk drawer.

In the drawer, of course,
there are old screwdrivers, twist ties,
and an expired coupon for microwave popcorn
— those, in fact, come with every junk drawer
straight from the manufacturer —
but they do not rest alone
in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer,

because it’s deep.
Really, really deep.

In Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
there’s a red 1982 Ford Fiesta
with one black fender
and a donut on the driver’s front wheel.

Fifteen baby shoes.
A bootleg copy of “The Rocketeer.”
A tea-stained ticket stub
for a show in Branson, Missouri.

A purple thong, size 18.

A blue hat made from a plastic bag.
A fibrous growth from a boar’s kidney.
A jammed .45 with a broken grip.
Hollow points loose in the bottom,
and a rust-caked cleaver.

A map to the stars’ homes.

A small address book
bound in bonded leather,
blank except for the letter “K”
written on the page for “J”
in orange crayon.

A broken rib she calls “Daddy.”

One old rose.

In the darkest corner,
something squirming
the approximate size of a human fist,
squeaking “I’m a good thing!
I’m a good thing!”
You touch it and
the wardrobe in the bedroom
begins to shake, the flowers
to tremble.  Martha’s far away,
but somehow,
her stomach knows the danger
and she sits for a moment
in fear, twisting a paintbrush
in her aching hands.

When you shut the drawer,
everything falls back to sleep:
the house in perfect order,
the forks aligned in their trays,
the tissues in Martha’s body
nestling back into place,
just so;

while in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
the lovely chaos resumes its churning
as the house dreams
of its brief sojourn
as a home.