Finding

I know I should stop looking
For things where I know they’re not
The keys are not on the dining room table
My reading glasses are not on the bed stand
No matter how sure I am that that is where I left them

I’ve combed the clutter on the table
I’ve inspected the bed stand and behind
And after a sweep around the house I return
To still find missing what I know isn’t there

The keys are not on the dining room table
My reading glasses are not on the bed stand
And my happiness is not in your embrace

I know that I need to look somewhere else
I understand that my wishing will not make it
Just simply appear, but hoping and wishing
Is so much easier than searching and finding.

The keys are not on the dining room table

It’s the frustration that is the hardest part
It’s the surety with which I remember
It being there, right there where it always was.
And I return to look again, unable to bear it.

My reading glasses are not on the bed stand

And I can’t see clearly. I wipe away the tears
And my vision is still clouded. Foot stompingly
Furious, I swell I crack I knock
The bed stand to the ground.

And my happiness is not in your embrace

It is not in the myriad of pictures, nor in the
Memories which swell at sound of your name.
It’s not buried in the past, or under the sheets.
It’s hidden somewhere—dark—where I can’t see,
And am too afraid to look because I’m not sure
What else I will find but…

Happiness my will never be found in your embrace
And my keys are still not on the dining room table.

Extraction

There’s a sliver of me that wishes
That I could extract you—

I’d find the precise connections
to sever
and with steady hand rend the fibers
of your being that I have woven
into my very fabric:
pull your ever winding strings
out of my eyes,
my ears,
my hands and
ball them up in an enormous pile and
offer them back.

—but I know I’d fall to pieces.