I shifted the trunk by the rusted floor drain

I shifted the trunk by the rusted floor drain

and a cloud of the past hit me square in the chest.

It isn't the cedar or the scent of the rain,

but something heavier, put to a permanent rest.

It’s in the grey sludge at the bottom of jars

filled with hex nuts and washers and unidentifiable pins.

It smells like the grease under old, rotting cars

and the damp, woolly breath where the basement begins.

I can’t find the word for it, sharp and metallic,

hanging in the air like a ghost in the wood.

A memory that’s messy and deeply archaic,

stuck in a corner where I once understood.