Plastic Tines

The drawer groaned open, a tired sigh,

full of old batteries, keys, and why

did we keep this? A blue plastic fork,

its tines bent back, a silent cork.

A crumb, a fossil of some meal past,

stuck in its teeth, meant not to last.

It was from that place, the one with the clown,

before the whole thing burned down.

Twenty years it sat, a tiny lie,

amidst the metal, reaching for the sky

of forgotten screws and broken clips.

A childhood in plastic, from a hundred slips

of memory, now a blunt, small spear.

I hold it, feel the flimsy fear

of things that won't go, won't break apart.

A little blue fork, stuck in my heart.