Slant

A flat top trunk, a packer lugged Stateside

in the 20s, sits by the window,

bearing the scars from the gangplanks grandfather

                       dragged it down.

The stevedores rough-housing pitted its face

like an overripe avocado, spooned out

its secrets, until it finally passed to me to prove

some stories come at you pitched at a slant.

It weathered depressions,

languished in basements, a greenhouse, a shed.

Then glossed over, settled in an alcove for years

without incident. It is

in its solid, dogged way, a statement. A testament

to the everyday, stowed away with fragile dreams

in its papered womb, in its empty chest.