My Pandora's Box

Crouched in the back of my closet,

perches a faded once yellow French Post box.

A testament of days between Lille and Paris on the TGV

Now covered in Tokyo dust.

Curtain lace from Brittany for Alaskan kitchen windows.

Spice jars from Belgium for my mother’s collection in Munich.

Austrian chocolates for my dad.

All these things boxed, received, and appreciated.

Should I leave it there?

Another year won’t hurt.

Or venture to lift the lid?

Surely there’d be only books, old postcards or a journal?

Best to let it be...

The saffron pointy beast growls to get my attention.

Curiosity hisses in my ear.

Wouldn’t you like to see?

How can you not know?

A bunched up parcel in a Hong Kong daily.

Forgotten news in a language I cannot read.

A brittle crinkling sarcophagus,

to a pewter coffee pitcher.

My dented retro 1920s trophy of past Eurasian trips.

This flashback to old Malaysian locomotive trains—

Tarnished with age, scratched with use.

Coffee splashing from rail jostled overfilled cups

bought on a memory in a Harrogate charity shop.

Bamboo handle newly rewrapped by a Tokyo artisan.

A harried morning of polishing tin alloy.

An urge to re-enact a part of the lost, foggy tableau

of our family breakfast on the train nearing Butterworth.

Steam from an arc of coffee spanning pitcher and cup.

Somehow that yellow box was recycled, 

sent to me in Tokyo,

to tease out memories.

The yellow French Post box,

that crouches in the back of my closet

my Pandora’s box.

Edited by Minali Liyanage.