Inside a drawer of an old chest and covered
by the accumulated powder dust of time
were a few brown mementos, faded photos,
a keychain attached to a penknife,
paperclips, pencil stubs
and some very old cancelled stamps.

In a "Happy Father's Day" present
originally color wrapping was a tie,
never send, forgotten there in its hiding,
with an old passport which had,
from many exotic countries
estranges seals that are fading.

Old brownish photos of someone younger
showing of police-mug-shot the likes
of somebody's most wanted face;
an earring found long ago under the bed,
a broken flashligh, and under it
a paper strip with a promise to travel.

Brown letters hold by a yellow string
pushed back into a forgetfulness corner with a
fountain-pen that answered them time after time
getting empty of ink long before the fire's flame
of all these letters stopped burning
for an elusive man with an elusive name.

A broken grandfather's pocket gold watch
that hundred years ago was looking better,
in the company of a lonely sock with a hole
for a big toe, what the sock was doing there?
Why is always one that will gone missing
from a pair supposedly travelling together?

A pale blue and deflated much loved pacifier
still hold with, and stained by droolings,
a blue ribbon, silky once, but today without
the crib's soft perfume from the child;
and there's a silver-rattle that could chase silences
with a sudden touch from a small hand.

A few old keys to open old forgotten doors;
efaced names in discolored Valentine cards,
a scratched 78rpm record without its cover
with a fadin label, "The Girl From Ipanema"
among bended thumbtacks, few toothpicks,
a bicycle bell, beer caps and stubs from a cinema.

Pieces of an insolvable puzzle even if you try,
all of them covered now by the dust of time,
they are like rusted fishing hooks holding
memories of many fishing happy days...
and like the hooks, this drawer holds all the small
and unimportant fragments of someone's life.