Just One More Coat

In the shop, the chest, it gleamed so hard,

all these layers, thick and charred

by sunlight, or just time's cruel hand.

No grain could show, no wood grain planned

to surface through this perfect shell.

A faint sweet sick, the varnish smell,

like someone tried to keep it new,

forgetting what it once went through.

A hairline crack, a tiny scar,

a fault line trying to go too far,

pushes up from deep below.

Each time it shows, they make it go,

with another coat, a careful slick.

It hides the rot, a clever trick.

But underneath, I know it's there,

that old wood breathing, thin as air.

And what it holds, it doesn't share.