Vishal Dutia

The door opens to hot, musty air, 
dust laden steps curtained 
with spider webs and a bare bulb
that strews yellow light over
dusty conch shells loitering next to
a battered tin lunch box, paint-faded,
sitting empty for nearly one hundred years.

Wires strung from one end to the other
provide a laundry line of sorts where
plastic bags encase an Army uniform
last worn in 197l and a coat trimmed
with raccoon slain seventy years ago.

On the floor a pile of tattered games
and jigsaw puzzles lie abandoned next
to a forlorn Ouija board, its magic lost
to forgetfulness. 

And why should the children remember 
when the children have grandchildren
of their own?

And there, in a corner, sitting by itself,
is a box holding a treasure, so special,
barely used, hardly touched,
saved for occasions that never were,
etched with grapes and vines
twined together like the friendship
which bestowed this wedding gift,
sixty-six years old, givers and recipients
dead, their joy lost to time in a dusty attic
but still housed in this abandoned box.

© VishalDutia