The Blank One

The dust motes swam

in the thin afternoon light,

trapped in the antique shop's musty air.

Two tin lunchboxes, side by side,

same dent on the lid, same faded paint.

One said 'Mark'

scrawled in something like crayon,

barely visible, a ghost of a name.

The other one,

a perfect twin, but blank.

Just bare metal,

the ghost of a ghost,

waiting for a hand that never reached,

a name that was never born,

or maybe

a name erased so completely

the light just passed through it.

I felt that space,

that hollowed-out tin box where a sandwich

or an apple

should have been,

but wasn't.