By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2009

Forty years since anyone opened this.
Blocks still joined
in castle remnants.

Green army men hold position
near the lid’s edge,
defending.

The bear missing one eye.
Just fact.

Matchbox cars aligned in their rows,
waiting.
Small hands once knew
every car’s name,
its engine sound.

Baseball cards rubber-banded tight.
Ron Santo’s rookie year.
Every boy had them then.

The cardboard box
that was a spaceship,
then a fort,
then forgotten.

The air shifts
where light finds a crack.

The silence here
holds something
I can’t name.