From the dank deeps under dampened compost,
to my amazement, there now emerges
almost unspoiled a metal spoon—
stainless steel, from the ancient stash
of our wedding booty. Wondering how
it came there, I mull, and memory mumbles:
The sandbox sat here, out of the sun,
and the great excavations of small engineers
ate hours of summer, ages ago.
Not a sound now of summery childhood
stirs in the yard. Instead, these strangers,
tall and tense and text-message crazed,
very occasionally visit their elders,
chewing on worry, stirring up change,
spinning out life by spoonfuls of latte.
Thus worketh wyrd, with its usual weirdness:
spoon as measure of their dreams and mine.
But let stealth and steel wool act in this story.
Buffed, burnished, and back in the drawer,
let the spoon re-up with the regular ranks
as though double decades could disappear.
—Maryann Corbett
