What I Saw the Second Time

I don't smoke. I've never wanted an ashtray in my house for its intended purpose.

Bricolage is the word that comes to mind when I can't find exactly what a space is asking for and have to build it from what's actually in front of me.

I picked it up not knowing what it was. It was heavy. Stepped ridges, a rounded corner, copper accents, a texture across the metal that read like leather until I looked closer. I knew the language immediately: Streamline Moderne. It wasn't until I saw the label that I realized it was an ashtray. By then it was already a catchall for keys and coins on my desk.

The second I'd been circling for longer, a pair of birds mid-flight over pale green stone, sitting in a booth I kept passing on, a smoker's object in a house with no smoker in it. Once I stopped thinking of it as a cigarette rest, I saw the birds and the stone as a small piece of sculpture.

Now I see ashtrays everywhere.