To Things Lost

I can go small: a receipt from Target, a Bic pen, that reason I had for not calling back last Tuesday. I don’t even bother looking. Easily replaceable. Inconsequential. Indeed, I never realize that you are lost, would never think of trying to find you. You may have rolled under a chair I never move or tossed in the garbage or buried under the other 452 things I was thinking about. Wherever you are, you will stay there until, centuries from now, archeologists take a delicate brush and ever so gently, dust away the edges. A pen? Here? Why??

 Other things I look for, but only once. A sock from the dryer. A recipe for banana bread. That reason I had for not calling back. These are small glitches in the day. No one notices unmatched socks. And all banana bread is basically the same. You didn’t want to talk to me anyway, which is why you called late and left a message. I have not forgotten the sound of your voice. The pause, always, after,  “Ok. Well....” I think about calling back. I forget, for a moment, why I don’t.

Some things I lost and never forgot about. A silver heart necklace. “The Miller’s Tale” once committed to memory. The password to an email account. I could recover it, but every time, I decide not to. I don’t want to read them. It’s probably mostly junk mail. And mail I don’t want to read. And drafts I never sent.

The real losses I feel every day. I drink my coffee and know they are gone. I take a shower and know. I lecture about rhetorical strategies and ethos and they are underneath everything I say.

One loss is the weight of my son in my arms.

Another is how often I say his name.

In the months after he died, I used to dream he died. A third loss is the dreams.

And the fourth is the waking up from the dreams.