“Lost and Found”

A shoelace disappeared

during the school day

while the wearer

was still in school.

An AirPod,

       one of a set, recently used,

was lost, too;

another AirPod,

         found soon after,

was not a match.

A left shoe soon followed.

The missing bracelets, and rings – as for forgotten things –

were not rare, but common, fakes:

even the Dior bangles were

reportedly

not worth stealing.

For every 10 e-mails,

5 are items lost

and items found

says Rey from E block,

says Rey from E block

more, says Sil,

who’s stopped looking

all altogether.

Where do all these lost things go?

What do we do with what we’ve found?

The AirPods someone left in my class

went unclaimed:

sat six months

on the shelf

by the door

(I wiped them down with alcohol

packing up for summer break).

But I still haven’t found

a single shoe.

At least,

   not at school…

Once, on an island off the coast of Honduras

– not that island, another one, but I’ve lost the name –

what could have been a pristine beach on a pristine shore was awash

with flotsam,

caught in Caribbean currents

brought to this lonely lost and found:

lightbulbs: 25, 40, 60 watts,

even the small ones for a vanity;

soft edges of glass and plastic;

bits of twine;

a rubber pallet;

and dozens and dozens of left shoes.

When I think of all I’ve lost
– I wonder especially about that journal I kept
the winter of my senior year in New York,
where I’d pressed a flower from outside the library

and written scraps of lines between hot chocolate

and flakes of a frozen croissant –

and the bits and pieces
of other’s lives I’ve found

– someone’s journal to Sussanah

found in the snow;
that USB in the college stacks

with the diary
about failing psychology
and the secrets
he kept from his roommate;
the letters and letters and letters

to J. Twensey, previous tenant –

I wonder what our lives might have been

had Saint Anthony’s feast day

fallen within the school year

and had we all found the time

to look for more

together.

(writer credits : Tim Gamwell)