The Wedge

I’m moving the oak for a lost piece of gold,

and the wood groans across the grain of the pine.

The dust is a velvet, thick and quite old,

marking a border, a dark, fuzzy line.

Instead of the earring, I find a red disk,

a plastic checker from a kid I don't know.

It sat in the dark at a very low risk

while the seasons above it continued to grow.

It’s coated in grit until it feels like a stone,

a wedge in the works of a life being swept.

I leave it right there, in the dust, all alone,

with the rest of the secrets the floorboards have kept.