Limbo

Blood Swaddled

In my closet is a cracked
black plywood trunk,
my parents bought it for me when
I went off to summer camp.
When I was twelve I began
grandly calling it my
Dowry Chest.
In the bottom of it,
securely wrapped in a bundle of
fading crib quilts
is a flat gray cardboard box.
In the box is an unused baby
book shrouded in
water stained ivory satin-
I rescued it from the attic when I was ten.
On the first mildewing page,
sketched out in my most careful handwriting
is your name.
And you are dead.