The Taste of Dust and Light
Image created on Canva
We bury our ghosts in shoeboxes —
photographs curling at the edges,
a ticket stub from a train
that no longer runs.
Remember how the air smelled
when we were twelve?
Like cut grass and gasoline,
Remember the tin-can laughter
of bicycles tipping into dusk.
Now the past is a bruise
we press just to feel
the sweet ache of color —
your mother’s voice
stitched into the static
of an old answering machine,
the way the porch light
swayed in a storm,
casting shadows that danced
like the people we thought
we’d become.
Time doesn’t heal.
It just layers the wound
with softer things:
the weight of a cat
long since buried,
the exact blue of a sweater
you outgrew by spring.
We kneel in the attic,
sifting through what’s left —
not relics, but proof
that we were here once,
loud and unafraid
before the world
whittled us into silence.
Like this? Check out some of these other pieces!
- Divergent Memory of a Burning Heap – Writing Memories
- What Loss Can Teach Us – Book Review
- Seventeen Years – Poetry
- Memories On a Rainy Evening – Fiction
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Sara Etgen-Baker
After a 25-year teaching career, Sara Etgen-Baker began writing. She’s written a collection of memoir vignettes (Shoebox Stories), a collection of poems (Kaleidoscopic Verses), and a novel (Secrets at Dillehay Crossing). Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications including Guideposts and Chicken Soup for the Soul.
