I found an old silver key while cleaning my closet floor.  For years it might have been there shoved in the corner under the lip of a log, fallen perhaps from pants pockets or my winter coat.  I don’t recall losing a key or changing a doorknob.  Perhaps it opens some old lock on the old all-glass door on the side porch. At the start back then strangers would meander down the winding driveway through the woods to the house and cup their hands against the reflections on the door windows to look around. I replaced that door with a solid one and put a no-trespassing sign up front.  

Older, I think; the place in Wellsville, Pennsylvania, where I came home one July morning to find plants and flowers in the entrance and at the top of the stairs for my birthday. It was the first place I lived where I gave someone else a key. Or it might be from my first house in New England, where the door stuck in winter when the frame froze.  I’d spend hours shoveling my steps and those of the old woman across the street who delivered mail.  She’d bring apple pie for my efforts or leave one for me with Sam at the Deacon’s Bench antique store.

But that key was gold.  Now I think this one some souvenir from my childhood home on Church Road, the two-story colonial where I owned my own first house key though I never needed it since after playing ball or riding bikes all day along the Great South Bay, I’d run in the back door full stride and laugh the way childhood makes you laugh for no reason at all.

I can’t recall now what this silver key might be for, though I’ll keep it, resist the urge to throw it away as evidence shows I clearly resisted before.  After all, it still opens doors to places I never thought I’d return.