The Unfinished Archive

In lacquered boxes, six feet down, Rest whispers of the unbought crown - The paintings left in mental drafts, The kindness stored away in crafts. Between the satin folds they place The morning walks at slower pace, The letters crumpled, never sent, The wild dreams left unbent. A coffee-stained rejection slip, The novel's pages, torn and ripped, Three cigarettes crushed in despair When winter stripped our cupboards bare. The day we sold mom's silver spoons, To pay for pills that came too soon, While mice made nests of unpaid bills Behind the walls of windowsills. These fragments sealed in knotted pine: Dead houseplants, dried in '99, A pawnshop ticket, never claimed - Now feed the earth we never tamed. -