There was once a little box
filled with specially imported chocolates.
Then — wafer, chunk, wedge and sliver —
eaten, and the box sat coated with dust.

Once, too, there was an orange,
the last one of a basketful.
As it aged there alone, it darkened,
as though filled with chocolate.

But of course it wasn’t. Seriously.
It was thrown out. The box, however,
gathered dust on the shelf because
of the wafers and slivers of memory

it contained. This is supposedly
the truth — each word — what
is cherished can be kept neatly
in just a dusty little box.