Made by vintage hands;
Skin as rough
As papyrus
Yet delicate
Like an ancient whisper –
Its secrets crushed
By a sudden noise –
With lavender petals
Pressed between its coarse layers
He finds glimpses of nostalgia
Through blurs of monochrome
Memories captured
In polaroid frames
To which he is not connected
Yet feels he knows deeply;
Almost as if
He’d lived as candidly
As these unknown people
Bearing reflections
Of untrammeled freedom
Reminding him
Of wild, teenaged summers
And he is almost sure
This unintended discovery
Among the old things in his attic
Tethers him
To a forgotten time
Bound in bamboo and dust