Satan’s Box

When I come in late, the devil is up
writing his sonnet. He’s drinking jasmine
tea. In search of a word he lifts the top
from his Russian box lined with velvet where
an io moth is spinning on a pin.
He sets aside

a child’s one-eyed bear,
my mother’s cloth tomato pincushion,
my father walking, blue button, black pen,
all the things I will never see again.

I take advantage of the commotion,
peer over his shoulder where the i’s are
dotted with pentecostal hearts. It starts:
Remembrance is afire in a drawer, ends:
Your house will melt on hinges like a star.