Unboxing a toy horse found in a dusty attic

I remove the cobwebs
that candyflossed the tin box.  
It’s like peeling wispy layers of time
dating back more than four decades. 
I open the box
and pick the treasure
wrapped in a newspaper. 
The brittle paper
crackles and crumbles in my grip,
a colorful toy horse is revealed. 
I move the legs of the animal
in a galloping rhythm
and they creak with ennui. 

The etching of some initials 
on the toy’s surface
take me back to the day
when a six-year-old boy,
who accompanied his mother
to a village fair,
tugs at her saree
and points at a woman
selling brightly colored toy animals
in a straw basket. 
The mother,
adorned in the scent
of the season’s freshest jasmine flowers,
smiles at the boy
and reaches out into the shopping bag
for her purse. 

That summer, 
the untiring horse,
like a faithful companion,
took the boy across meadows,
over dreamy skies, 
into bloody battles 
in school playgrounds, 
and dungeons 
guarded by hungry monsters.