Frankenplot - The Volunteers

Cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Wed, 30 Sep 2026
  • 228 reads
12 comments
 

 

The volunteers, 

Charity shop on a Thursday

Yellowed fingers in the pages

Search for hidden photos, love notes, 

Pound notes and Penny Blacks

Pointed high heels so powerful

They changed the topography of her feet

 

Lantern-jawed and silent

Checking the Clarice Cliff for cracks

While watching young blood 

And wondering how it tastes

Soft hands rifling the racks 

Items he shook and flicked, hang sadly

Boob tubes bobbled by the rub of slow dances

 

He likes it when they’re all the same size

The crammed width of a Stag Minstrel

Homeless now that she has died, passed on

He holds the dresses close and despairs

It’s not protocol to include underwear

But there must be a way, he thinks

 

The woman behind the counter

Glares and is often sour for no reason

‘Curtains, no, we don’t take those.’

Her time is free and her vigor is a bonus

‘The young never had it so good,’ she says loudly

‘I was a war baby, one egg a week!’

She goes home to sit on her nest eggs

 

There are so many trinkets

Sad things which don’t perish with dignity

It’s the thought that counts and the thought

Is washed away in ever stronger currents

Objects on a carousel of meaninglessness

Real things you can touch are dead weight now

A roll of bubblewrap to keep them alive

 

Fingering the vinyl makes him feel young

He was there, his needle carefully placed

Too carefully he concludes now 

If only he’d feared less the scratch of life

He might still be hearing music 

Instead the woman shouts, ‘this hat smells bad.’

 

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

carousel of meaningless. You've caught the bug. We all have. Charity shops are where the battle-lines are drawn. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you celticman. The high street is a carousel of charity shops, barbers, coffee shops. I caught the bug yes but the cure is worse.

 

Submitted by marandina on

You paint a desolate picture, Jane. A jumble of images in a shop full of jumble and a melting pot of emotions, some pining for what might have been. All skilfully pulled together in your poem. 

This is almost the very definition of a Frankenplot. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Paul. I didn't mean to make it that desolate actually. Those volunteers were full of darkness. I was worried it wouldn't fit the Frankenplot brief but you've reassured me. Who needs ghosts when there's the living.

 

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Something deeply unsettling about this poem Jane - thank you very much for your entry to the challenge!

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Unsettling is better than spooky I think. Thank yoooooooh, Insert.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

"‘The young never had it so good,’ she says loudly

‘I was a war baby, one egg a week!’

She goes home to sit on her nest eggs"

You are brilliant :0)

Also, the man imagining the women who had worn those dresses, like a voyeur of ghosts.

There's no kindness, no charity in this charity shop

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you for your comment, Di. You know the type of older person who thinks the younger generation have nothing to complain about, I suppose it makes them feel better. 

 

Submitted by SoulFire77 on

Great, very evocative poem! I loved this, Jane. Thank you for contributing! 

"If only he feared less the scratch of life, he might still be hearing music" gave me chills. That's good stuff!

- Jay

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Jay for the inspiration. 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

I just finished my weekly shift at the charity shop at lunchtime today, so this is very relevant !

Yes we do find all sorts of sad and funny things in pockets and bags.  I recently found an order of service for a wedding from 1986 in a book, so somebody's ruby wedding anniversary this year.  Amazingly, the other volunteer recognized the names and took the card to give it to them.  (Cricklade is a small place). We often get receipts and tickets in books too. Some part of somebody's life I've touched, but will never know the significance of.  Did they like what they bought ?  Did they enjoy the holiday ?

I've found a £20 note in a coat pocket - out of date but the post office credited it to our account. Dedications written in old hardback books always intrigue me.  A book was obviously an expensive item and would be bought as a present with 'Happy Birthday' or 'Happy Christmas' written in it with a year and a name.  Makes me wonder what their relationship to the other person was.

It's very sad sometimes too.  The man who comes in and says his wife has died and will we take her stuff.  The old bible, signed to Miss somebody from all the children in a mission in South Africa in 1952, and you know Miss somebody has lived and died a spinster doing good works, and nobody in the family wanted a record of her.  The wedding dress with the labels still on it.

Behind the counter we're intersecting all the time with the lives, and deaths, of people we will never know.  Your poem really captures this so well Jane.

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, GlosKat, that's very interesting. I always find myself reading the old postcards in antique shops. I agree, there is something sad about it, all the thoughts and connections resigned to objects, at least they get recycled. The inscriptions inside books are so touching, we seemed to have lost this.

Well done for volunteering, those shops keep the high streets alive.