The Cosmic Lost & Found

If there’s a cosmic lost and found

and you know where to find it

then you know where I’ll be

heaped on top of a pile

of discarded whatevers

lost gloves

and scarves and hats

an inexplicable bathrobe

a number of solo socks

your copy of the Tao te Ching

by Ursula le Guin

the necklace you stole

from your mother

that reminded her

of your father

the keys to the lock

on your glovebox

but not whatever

is trapped in there.

I’m sifting through both

things utterly forgotten and things

that plague you with the nagging

question of where you left them.

I sit on an infinity of bobby pins

and rubber bands

the frame containing

all but the senior year photos

of your son, even the one

where he wore the aubergine beret

there’s your ring in the shape

of a leaping horse Nicki lost

there’s the leather belt you tooled

in 8th grade shop class with the letters

R O Y, for your grandfather

centered between filigrees

on my lap is the white cat

that ran away one spring

who had white eyes and a fat belly

lying with his head on my knee

is your golden retriever

which your step-father sold

for killing the grass along the fence-line

where he ran and ran.

My bed is made of all the junk mail

never read and never missed

and notebooks lost with only

a few front pages filled with

the insecure marks of hesitant youth

somewhere around here

is your first Danzig cassette

that Bob Dylan poster

and the tape with your father’s voice

which you never did listen to

all the way through

because it made you cry so hard.

There I am adrift

amidst these oddments

the keeper of the left behind

the recorder of what’s missing.

There’s me whistling

a little tune

you made up

when you were nine

about the clouds

and the horses.

There’s me

waiting to be found.

-Jeanette Powers