Bought it in the 60’s for fifty cents at a flea market stall from
a beaded pseudo-hippie love goddess and here it is again
under old shoes on the floor at the back of a storage closet —
its cinnabar lacquer smooth to the touch, black reptilian monsters
spitting ornate flames, toxic scent still rising out of interior dank
Rummaging through the odds and ends of a miscellaneous life
I wonder at so much gone missing: souvenirs of travels I thought
I tossed inside, scribbled notes from lovers, photos of my children,
adventures I planned in my youth, the magic I expected
from the karma of the artist who gave spirits to the creatures
writhing across the surface of the wood in make believe mist
What’s left is my draft card, a tangle of funky chains once thought
cool for a man to hang around his neck, a silver cigarette lighter
inscribed with, “Those who forget history are bound to relive it,”
given to me on Christmas Day in a jungle hooch in Cambodia
by a soldier sent home early for going crazy, a gold tie pin
from years in the troughs of Wall Street dodging the feral 500’s,
Eugene McCarthy campaign button, carved ivory Buddha
and a peace dove ring that no longer fits
Life has been called a journey but journey is too grand a word
for such a small collection of people, objects, moments, a life
with too little time to gather those things I wanted for myself
and only a few afternoons left to lift the lid and inhale
the souls of distant dragons