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Lost key for a hall-closet (Free verse) by zodiac
Driving home she gets it suddenly,
all-whole, surely as if
it's tied at the end of a ribbon she spools
absent-mindedly from her pocket;
the picture she's had of it,
widening, lets in a half-done
crossword-puzzle, used candles, a high-school-
reunion letter - a Place shining
real as her hand. She's a lowland
topography to her life, she knows: something bright,
moss-pungent and utterly-trodden. But this,
she thinks, is new - then: Oh. Oh my.
Like missing a stair in the dark; she sees:
old Bible under the floorboards, a dishrag hung
and forgotten out the back window, and she
could maybe wear that crotchless thing
with the garters. God, she thinks, must've been
the kids' last birthday. And, after,
like a finger missing. She'd kept
opening drawers, always expecting it.
A friend of hers says, Lord,
a man never lost something without thinking
the word new; it's a joke for them,
a soiled jumper in the bushes. So.
Then she's tucked, like laundry wearing rumpled laundry,
in the old crotchless, scallops on the stove
and him coming home. This is absurd, she laughs.
Then after a moment: This is it. Last chance.
The thing she's most sure of: that night
her hand wakes her plunging in the crack
behind the side-table - for what?
she can't remember. Then she says, Oh.
Of course. It isn't here.
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