Progress:

The tin box
paper picture-covered for marketability
inside the crumbled biscuits
golliwogs or teddy bears
broken into fragments of the original shape
plucked by my fingers
or a sister’s, or brother’s
each of us seeking the largest fragments
not just out of greed
by because the largest took us closest
to the whole image, the teddy bear, the golliwog, the fantasy
of possessing the whole in form.

The tin box
purchased in the knowledge
the contents were shattered
cheaper that way, less competition, the whole
a prize for richer purses – mother always
found the cheapest example
to make her tattered purse stretch further
than our seven stomachs, ignored us
when we complained occasionally,
never acknowledged that we looked guiltily
at lunchboxes overflowing with colours
we had never seen.

The tin box
has gone the way of so many things
replaced in a rush
like so much
with plastic wrappers that are not
part of the journey the way that tin box had been
and cannot house
the small toy soldiers of mine
the swap cards of a sister
or the model kits of a brother,
cannot be banged as a drum,
unable to be used in a myriad of ways.

A wrapper is unwrapped
discarded, dead it lays,
a crinkle in time
to be crunched up
and tossed into the bin,
never seen again.