[The auction for this Significant Object, with song (MP3, and lyrics, below), by Teddy Blanks, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $2.38. This was part of a special collaboration with Design Observer, where it was co-published here.]

CLICK BUTTON to listen to “Figurines” by Teddy Blanks.

“Figurines”

All those years we were married,
You, the beloved host of a daytime talk show
I’d stay home with the children
arranging your figurines for display

Now I stare at the mantle
Fixed on a small white porcelain motor scooter
Remembering how you told me
You wanted to ride a real one someday

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
TVs have taken flight
Leaving your objects rusting away

Three straight days of headline news
Your memorial, it was deeply moving
All the stars call to tell me
“She was the queen of daytime TV”

But I’m stuck here with your boxes, baby
Just like it was on the day you left here
you took off on your scooter,
leaving the porcelain one to me

Were you asleep? Was it too dark
when you swerved across the boulevard,
and all the braking cars,
crashing directly into a tree?

Walked right up to an ambush
They were just standing there like a ticking task force,
sisters reading your diary,
combing the wreckage, taping the scene

Camouflaged in the background,
I’m just a footnote in the life of a fallen legend,
father of her two children,
keeping her archives ordered and clean

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
and all that’s left in sight
is your collection of figurines

[Guitar on ‘Figurines’ played by Patrick Albertson]