Lost Puzzle Piece

The missing piece fell from my pocket
in nineteen-eighty-one, jangled together
with brass disks scooped from the foundry floor.

The brass, the key, the camouflaged
conundrum. The hesitant, half-uncertain
backwards glance to no avail.

The station wagon half-filled with
six dozen unnecessary scraps.
Not one was the missing piece.

You might think I would dwell
on the fact of disappearance, the
birthday party magic trick.

Special events fall to the side.
One morning I wake, intending to
set things right.

I did not notice it was missing
until I wanted to be idealistic
and I had not heard from you

for years.

[RK, 2/19/21]


A Cloud of Ghosts

Ships once crowded a small harbor
and everyone clamored for passage.

I asked myself, quo vadis?
and the quay became silent.

I thought people were close and
tight fisted with intimacies.

We fledged with uncertainty and
sophomoric radiant auras.

This carried us, carried me
through real and imagined days.

Now I pace a washing-away island and
Watch ships dip below the horizon.

“There are three kinds of people: the quick, the dead, and those who sail the sea in ships.” —Attributed to Anacharsis, 6^th century BCE Scythian philosopher.

[RK, 2/19/21]