The lid is fast,

grimed with dust and age

polish and grease.

If I could open it,

Hope would fly free,

in an exhaled sigh of moths and grit.

It would catch the throat with incense.

Beeswax breath.

So I content myself with tracing round the carvings,

place my fingers where the brailled blind once did

sit with itchy legs on cut moquette

swing them

describing arcs

as the buckles on my sandals mark the beat.

Smell camphor and apples on the breeze I raise

and wonder drily

where I hid the key.