You built a box for the birth of salvation.
It was cedarwood, stained.
Nestled underneath a Yuletide spruce, the hope
chest crouched like some anthropic bud
off the conifer’s dying body,
trampling its skirt with
blockish feet.
It was ugly, misaligned, and guilting:
The lid was crowned in twisted,
viney wire, applied with spikes
driven down in woodflesh,
and opened, you could see
the tips protrude inside,
reminders, maybe, of your
hard toil.
You would always remind
us of your
hard toil.
Resin-scent would henceforth be
everpresent at my bedfoot,
cloaking me in the aromatic
afterlife of trees
and filling my throat
with presence,
an admonition that my future
was your gift.
I was meant to make my dowry in it,
Assembling the sundry lot of
coupled life:
towels, cookery, bedthings.
But I filled it with
cheap, broken junk.
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