White Dust

A half-empty box, tucked deep in the back,

Borax, white dust, a forgotten track.

Grandma swore by it, for clothes, for ants,

a household god, in her kitchen dance.

I run my thumb over the worn-out flap,

a fine, dry powder, like a dusty map

to simpler fixes, before all the new,

when one thing did what a hundred now do.

It smells faintly clean, a memory caught,

of scrubbed floors, of lessons taught.

Just a box of powder, plain and old,

but a lifetime of useful stories it's told.