Relics

An old box at my Pop's place

Like a sunken chest

Full of his father's tools

And piece by piece

I drag them out into the light 

Like some Arthurian saga

Carrying my ancestor's bones

Up from the deep

Then plunging them into a tub of white vinegar

Rust pustules fizzing and popping

After weeks, forming a skin on the surface of the liquid

Me coming back and breaking through it

Lifting the relics back out

Rubbing the rust off with a cloth

Scrubbing back the black 

Washing away the amnesic fog

Revealing the steel

Revealing the maker's mark

Revealing my great grandfather's initials

"A.P." scratched into the wooden handle

Like a transmission from the void

The last thoughts of a dying star

Throbbing across the cold black yonder.

Writer: Matthew Phillips

Editor: Danielle Rodier