Walking up to the stone chapel
half crumbling on a hill where the grass is sparse
an empty room is intact
only one small window
and a small wood framed bed
has seen white cotton sheets long ago
but no more.
One loose rock in the wall of the room
pink in color teased the glass reflection
shining upon a scrap of paper once hidden
in its entirety behind that rock.
Over the years each caretaker of the chapel
moved the stone, scraping away at each side
until it could be pulled out.
The first time the paper, an old letter, was read
the first caretaker died soon afterwards, tearing it
in half and leaving only a small portion behind.
The remaining portion bore the words “Dear B—–”
on it, with no other clues to what the letter was about.
Until the day when one other small item was found behind
the pink stone, a broken locket containing a woman’s face inside
and a mossy growth on the golden back formed a permanent heart
haunting the memory of the person who found it
gazing out the window while sitting on the bed
thinking what it must have been like to
have at least seen the original letter
complete with spidery handwriting
and the signature of the chapel’s builder.