The second-place prize (speech and debate)
Three blue buttons (cut from a coat)
Photo of me as a bride (Halloween, age 5)
Postcards blank and full of hieroglyphics
Choir concert leaflet, flaking like dried petals
Tickets with dates in black, fonts unapologetic as ants
That matchbook, the big Korean bill, an unused stamp
And letters that bid me to pore over their messages
All of these things I take out of their box,
Year after year, a ritual in deciphering
