Photo by Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash

Time Capsule

We dug a hole at the back
of grandma’s garden,
where we had laid bodies
to rest in matchstick
boxes, each grave with its
makeshift cross of twigs
and brambles, as if beetles, too,
had a god, or a church, or a soul.

It was the pull of a future
in which we were happy,
doing the things we dreamed of
with people we dreamed of,
our lives unfurling their tendrils
far from home, in a garden
whose patient keeper
would know our value.

We knelt in the dirt with our
charms, letters, and trinkets,
trading insipid presents
for the unknown. What else
did we put in that shoebox,
what kind of promise
to last us through years of
drought, blight, and uprooting,
each one of us wrapped in loss
like a seed in its fruit?

It is what we don’t remember
we miss the most. We never
went back, yet the tug is warm
and constant. Whatever magic
we called on has done its duty.
We know we were loved,
possibly even happy,
and that the past we buried
still grows within us,
awaiting a suitable moment
to burst into bloom.