The Land of Lost Things

These early days of spring
I rummage through my bags
far too often looking for lost things—

keys attached to a rubber chicken
and sanity, the cell phone ringing
with children expecting me to pick up,
hair clips to arrange out of control curls
into something suitable for work,
change for the meter,
pens—blue and black. . .
glasses—Granny and Librarian Black,
fruit flavored gum, eye liner, lip stick—Dreamy Pink
business cards with one of my jobs and gold seal, tampons.

Sometimes, in frustration,
I dump the contents
onto the seat of my car
or onto the floor of my office,
shuffling everything into order
by force to avoid a rage
or embarrassment in public
when losing my cool
is unacceptable.

The truth is
I’ve lost it already—
lost the place where my breath and my head
meet for tea and meditation
before they adjourn to the bedroom
to help each other gently undress,
leave their false lives behind,
look each other in the reception of the eye,
and let the memory of the skin
guide their hands
in the calligraphy of love.

Maybe I’ll go fishing instead.
Maybe I’ll drink beer and whiskey shots
under someone else’s boat this April. . .
stay out of the rain and wind
and forget the color of scales
that roasted over an open fire by savages
would fill the gap in my belly
that used to pretend
it was Kharma.

I’m losing my mind again
as I consider what I could give up
for your heart—the one warm
and bloody object
I care about.

I need you
more than ever
to locate the path
from the center of you
to the center of me—
the epicenter that erupts without warning
into tremors of joy and grief
at all we will find in the rubble
of losing everything.

In this land of lost things
I’ll feed you fresh gnocchi with greens
and the bursts of raspberries
that heal everything.
In this place
I am a vagabond
of absolutely nothing
and you are the warmth
of home.