Breadcrumbs

CLAUDINE NASH

Consider that right now
somewhere
beneath a sycamore,

a trace of you
is drifting from the cracks
of an abandoned
cigar box.

As you sleep soundly
clear across the eastern
seaboard,

a stranger
with a rusted spade

is reaching down
to brush the earth
that has been weighing
upon its wooden lid
these nights.

Now he lifts this
muddy capsule,

he peels back its seal
ever so gingerly,

and the universe
reclaims the air
that sits inside.

This is how
you come to awaken
whole and weightless,

how when you raise
your eyes towards
the morning sky

up floats
a peace sign pendant;

your first forty-five;

an ink well;

a perfectly preserved set
of words and beliefs;

the self you buried,

intact
and free.