Artefacts

A crossword,
Eleven years old,
Missing.

A cartoon I once drew
Of a teacher who drove us mad.
He lives in a bubble, you said.
(I filed away that sentence too.)

Shared agonies
Of what we saw
As intellectual persecution,
(Arrogant bunch of brats, no?)
Scribbled in ink.
Preserved in a battered notebook.

A book refernce
You wrote with my eyeliner.
Pinned to a term paper.

The stain of a spilt cappuccino,
The echo of the spat
That flowed from/with the coffee.
Imprinted on that ugly sweater
You still insist on wearing.

A cheap toffee wrapper
Twisted into an armless dancer.
Crinkly, falling apart.

A ring of tarnished silver
To tame my truant middle finger,
Now discarded in a square box.
In it's shrunken girth,
My F.0. finger liberated.

The smell of a rainy afternoon
Trapped in a tub we floated boats in.
Chipped now, and grey in patches.

The sum of years
When broken down
Leaves so many artefacts.