Time capsule

Michael Cope

Under the house there were dusty
seventy-two-year-old curls of wood
showing in section the grain of Norwegian deal,
still crisp as the day they were slivered from the beam —
no damp down here but dry black sand and stone.

Under the house there had been dark
since that carpenter drove a final nail
through the last plank to the rough-cut two-by-four
that still holds the golden bones of conifers
we call the floor. There were spider webs
but dusty and unflied, and the pale
breath of the wind through narrow vents.

Under the house the probing torch beam showed
good brick walls still marked by the trowel’s last stroke
and rubble just heaped in — too much work to haul away —
and a gap in a back wall like a castle window
giving black hint of a further room.

Standing in the new doorway we’d pushed through,
among broken bricks and cement there were only
heaped dirt and ambiguous foundations.
Daylight and its shadow touched everything.
The space beyond was packed with dry sand.

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