Box
A teacher guides his pupils past headless marble torsos,
dusty cabinets of tiny Attic coins, pockmarked stylobates,
to a large clay pithos, Said to be the original Pandora’s Box,
he tells them, reading from his Lonely Planet Guide.
They stare at the old clay pot – not even a box.
A tall boy steps forward, sticks his head in it and belches.
Teacher shepherds them out into furnace heat,
their tour bus shimmering on a cloud of blue exhaust.
The janitor yawns, turns off the air-conditioning,
putts off downhill on his vintage motor scooter.
Abandoned, the exhibits maintain a silent indifference.
But inside the pithos, something stirs.
Konstandinos (Dino) Mahoney won publication of his collection, The Great Comet of 1996 Foretellsin the 2021 Live Canon collection competition. Tutti Fruiti was a winner of the Sentinel Poetry Book Competition. His poem, ‘Peace Pipe’ was voted poem of the month in IS&T. https://www.dinomahoney.co.uk/