Spring Cleaning

Spring-cleaning the basement, I found a moving-box,

empty but for a scrap of paper trapped under the fold,

a paper trapped and stuck fast by time.

I almost missed it in my cleaning frenzy,

pitching paper and parcel into the trash bin

brought down from the kitchen for just that purpose,

to rid myself of the stuff collecting in the basement of my life,

stuff taking up space I needed for no other reason

than to fill it up again, a recycling, of sorts.

But here in an otherwise empty box, a box

I wonder why I’d left there empty, I found

a single scrap of paper, faded, yellowed,

barely visible sticking out from under the flap

that had trapped it, forced it flat, held it down,

only a small strip of yellowed paper exerting itself,

making itself known, crying out for rescue.

Reaching in, I pried it loose, careful not to tear it,

as it resisted, unsure as I was of these hands

bent on destructive springtime cleaning,

hands that might easily tear it, trash it,

rip and mangle and pitch it destroyed into the kitchen

bin brought down to rid me of these useless scraps.

It came unstuck, untrapped from the folded cardboard now,

and the writing on it stood out bold, a child’s handwriting,

carefully carved letters and words written in blue,

not the faded blue of a pen, but the brilliant blue

of a blueberry-blue marker, scented, her favorite,

the words still fresh, preserved between the cardboard

folds all these years, saved perhaps for today, cleaning day,

as a rose is pressed between the pages of a book,

all these years since I’d sent her crying to her room

and sent her into the world against me.

Those words in blueberry blue still sting me today

as they’d stung me then: “I’m sorry!”

I was sorry, too, sorry for my anger

at some childish discovery I didn’t want to share,

had not time to share, no patience to share,

but struck out at her, the flat of my palm

on her flesh and the tears and the slamming doors

and this note scrawled in blueberry blue,

a reminder freed now from the folds of a box.

I’d forgotten that note as I’d forgotten our pain,

      her pain at my anger,

      my pain at her forgiveness,

      our pain slipping away,

      preserved in a cardboard box,

      a cardboard box at cleaning time.