Yesterday we hung the wind chime 
we got as a wedding present–
Pachelbel’s Cannon in D trapped 

inside a cardboard box 
For decades it stared at me 
from the top shelf of my garage,

pleading
I looked away,
the bigger problem too messy,

impossible to unravel
Our lives had gotten too busy for

wind chimes–
listening to them
or stringing them up

Someday had been pushed back 
another decade

Plastic sleds and crusty gallons of paint 
nestled against the white box 
with faded lettering
welcoming it to the family 
of long-forgottens

But then one day
my son, years beyond
the thrill of a hammer and a nail
found a large swath of time in 
quarantine

He dug out the blue bin
full of wood scraps 
and inside discovered an old door-jamb
perfect for making the limb 
of a cross bow

As he slid the bin of wood off the shelf
he spotted a box,
opened it to reveal glittering pipes

Mom, look!
Who knew we were a family 
with a wind chime?

With a single motion
I freed the tangle of strings,
the clapper unleashing its song

My husband screwed a hook 
into the soffit above our porch
and we hung our wedding chimes.
It took us only five minutes 
and twenty-two years

Lisa Reisig Ferrazzano, Ph.D., is a linguist, Italian instructor, and writer. Her work has appeared in MAW, Literary Mama, Motherwell, Her View from Home, and the Cap Times.