‘The Antiques Buyer Meets His Match’: A Poem by Mark Stellinga

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The Antiques Buyer
Meets His Match

“What’s the best you’ll do?” I asked;
__“It’s nice, but needs some work…
and parts for these, as you may know,
__are sometimes hard to find!”
“If you don’t like it—leave it, sir,”
__the gray-haired lady quipped;
“finding what it needs to function
__never crossed my mind!
I let buyers wrestle with
__the costs of restoration;
leaving things the way I find
__them keeps my prices down.
That’s the bottom dollar,” she
__asserted with a smirk,
then nailed me with an angry glare
__in deference to my frown.

“Seven bucks is crazy,” I
__unloaded on the gal,
“when it could take another 5
__or 6 to make it work!”

“Not if when it’s all restored
__it’s worth a couple thousand—
which it is,” she fired back,
__“now, suit yourself, ya’ jerk!”

The truth is—what it needed was
__a piece of cake to find,
and yes—when fixed—potential profit
__stood at—“through the roof,”
So, as my wife had prophesied:
__“You’ll one day meet your match.”
In this particular circumstance
__she’d finally found her proof!

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Mark Stellinga is a poet and antiques dealer residing in Iowa.