sky lowering with cold bruised clouds

air heavy with all the dread we carry

the uncertainty in which we live everyday

extreme storms unpredictable events

the niggling doubt remains

that someone somewhere once knew could know

does know more than we about their course

now we are no longer privy to such things

another loss of a public service a common good

there’s an app for this coming soon

but only if you pay

looking for that one lost glove that missing sock

that fork that disappeared last week

I opened the drawer in the cabinet

no not that one it holds all the random letters

addressed to previous occupants

kept in case they one day knock on the door

you never know that car warranty could be important

the other one the one that contains all the odd items

from all the years that have ever gone astray

can openers number one pencils even a few yellowed baby teeth

not mine but from some child who lived here before

who knows when but they might want them

just joking about all of this none of the above is true

maybe could be I don’t know

because I remember her hoeing the garden

alone in her eighties in her small wood-framed house

how she left that behind to accompany her sister

who was my great grandmother in her dying days

and the kindness in her faded gray eyes

as she wrapped her wrinkled hands around mine

and told me she too would follow soon

with this sort of history woven into my bones

fierce love that disregards common norms

but pursues a deeper decency instead

I cannot be afraid

she went beyond again and again

showed me how this can be done

one gentle implacable step after another