POETRY 1

Easy to Find

I have often looked inside my drawers
without knowing why.
Something called out.
Seek me and you shall find,
but when I obey
I’m confounded by memory’s fleeting ways.
Hands immerse and return awkwardly empty
like a runaway child
when no one came after them.
I know there is something I seek
that hides from me so I can’t think about what I lack.
It is, however, and this is the point,
too damn powerful to be silent and still.
Besides, I know I lack it because I miss it.
I miss it.
Whatever “it” is.
Whatever I need it to be it is not that.
It can never be anything but what it is.
And so I search in drawers and closets absent of why,
driven like a machine whose switch has been thrown
just because it can.
I miss it.
I wish it could find me.
Maybe I need to stay put long enough for it to do so.
Now there’s a switch.
Let the powerful “it” seek me out.
But for how long must I wait?
And how will I recognize it should it find me?
There must be names
for this condition that end in
phobia.
Damn, I hate that suffix.
It all starts with a sense of wonder
and ends in a sense of emptiness.
God, I wish you could find me here.
I’ll tuck myself in a little drawer
right out in the open.
I won’t bury myself under incidentals.
I’ll be right on top.
Easy to find.
Do you need me for anything?
I hope so because I need you for everything.


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