Many thanks to Editor, John Hart,  for publishing this poem in the December Issue.

The Reckoning
​
Out there. Magnifying the saw-tooth edge
on a blade of grass, an ant’s bulbous belly,
below the bifocal line. Your lost glasses.

You retrace the way you’ve been, eyes on weeds
off the path, looking for a metal frame glinting,
a sidewise glance. You don’t give up easily.

Things must take up space, so to all lost things a place!
Blue sweater behind the chair; under a newspaper, the keys;
umbrellas just about everywhere. Some to forfeit, some to find.

Tell yourself — of course, they can be replaced! These,
with another pair, a sweater in a warmer shade.
A lover who won’t misplace what you say. You tried your best.

Words can be tossed out, lost to interpretation. Look
how you go back over the same ground
trying to retrieve what you said. Without the dash of it.

And what’s left if you can’t retract or replace?
Loss, that’s it, isn’t it? A thing in itself.