The Keepsake Box

There’s a silver ring in a wooden box
Set in its bezel is an acorn I found
On a path I took
When you weren’t around
Half buried it hid
Just below the ground.

Placed over these is a secret note
Tied with a rose colored satin ribbon
From an enigmatic beauty
To whom I’d given
A match she lit to a candle I held
Which pooled in my palm
With my skin it meld.

There were other memories too,
Like a pyrite cube and a fragile shell
One beneath a lock of hair
A quiet clapper from a broken bell
And some unspent coins from the pacific rim
And other trinkets I’d thrown in.

Its lid unopened, surfaced dusted
The hinges loose and rusted
A lonely shrine for a thousand loves
Each before the other was never enough
But the box itself is your memory’s chest
Which leaves no wonder that
Filled with others, overflows with emptiness.