What the Dust Kept

We slid your boxes out and I breathed through my mouth —

that flat cold smell of cardboard in the dark,

the particular cold of long-kept things. I drove home

and reached under my own bed, and missed the mark —

looking for the charger I'd dropped, and found

the shoebox first. The lid had warped from damp.

The rubber band snapped into two pieces.

I sat there with them. Sat there like a lamp

that someone forgot to turn off. Just there.

The box has been there longer than some years

I still call recent. I know the rough season,

the old apartment, the particular fears.

I found the charger. Plugged the phone back in.

Went to bed and lay there in the low light.

Tried to name what's in it. Got the year,

the shape of it. The address. Left it right

where it was.