The Gift

Here’s a cigar box, varnished square
decoupaged with magazine cutouts:

here’s the smell of the long untouched,
the spider trail of pale white asterisks

our hands disturbed, now scuttling
across the floorboards. Sepia sheets,

cursive handwriting. Oh how we want
to know there is some kind of secret,

frond sharpened once by a green
and desperate scent— some face

to fasten to our own, however late.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.