Licence to Open the Hour

The sardine tin waits on the wooden table,

lamplight resting in its dents.

Painted bodies press flank to flank,

a crowded school held on a lid.

Each eye is a round signal,

bright as a coin rubbed smooth.

They watch, and the room thins.

I lift the hinge and a colder breath rises,

metal mixed with paper dust.

Inside, the day loosens.

A sketch with a blue gaze lies open.

Notes rubbed pale by thumbs soften at the edges.

In the corners, four small relics shift.

Keys with bent pins sit beside two stamps.

A dull clip waits by them.

The scrape of card against card sounds like water.

Time opens here in a quiet style, unhurried, without spectacle.

The fish stare seems to expand until I can step through.

Edges soften, then the table changes temperature.

I take that as a licence

to stand inside what used to be my present.

A whisper leans near my shoulder.

Not wind or pipes. Something closer.

I hear the laugh of a friend I cannot place,

familiar and out of reach,

as if it travelled by tin and varnish.

I answer the way I know,

with a careful line from a pen along a margin:

I was here. I am here.

Paint flecks shine along the rim.

Silver shapes crowd, not swimming, only held.

Their stillness feels like patience,

not quite mercy, not unkind.

The sketches on the table keep their secrets,

hair crossing an eye, a face that is mine when the light leans.

I close the tin and the room gathers itself.

The fish settle back into colour and line.

Under the lid a narrow stripe stays bright,

a seam I can lift on evenings that ask for ghosts,

when the past chooses this small box

as the doorway that fits my hand.