“Oaken Chest”
Return to a schoolhouse from the past
to vanish your memories
we never got the chance to grow older
yesterday’s cereal boxes
written on childhood caves
as the oxen shower
in a transitional fever
parkas soak from green to black
warm years turned moldy
talking with stilts
in an abandoned house
where we were alive once
alive and well…
or as much as anyone else
creeps the alleys, fangs the tigers
what was lost.
That’s the most horrible story
in all the world.
Is the teller deceased?
Has he broken his vows?
We played in the woods
lost on milk cartons
you never saw us
the ghost of your past harm
though we saunter
past gravestones serene
leave a little locket by your bedside
powder box of dreams
to vanish your memories.
nicholauspatnaude 
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