In Memory of Strayed Things

The Black Mitt (Elegy)
Rhea Tregebov

The black mitt curled, coiled, dirty against the dirty snow,
its thumb chewed to a ragged stump. The pair of brown loafers
resting, on the lowest, broken, branch of a balsam shrub,
in an aspect of expectation, the left one slightly askew,
as though their owner had lifted off, and they were the last traces
of some secular Assumption. What wanders the world:
keys, scarves, umbrellas; hair clips, hubcaps, bicycle locks.
The belt loose in the gutter, the dog’s leash without dog,
without owner. Things get away though others collect
in the backs of closets, on windowsills; in empty yogurt
containers, biscuit tins: ticket stubs from baseball games,
empty spools for thread, the wooden ones; plastic balls
the colour of candy that you almost want to bite into;
a Pez container with a Goofy head, its rectangular candies
long gone or gone stale; screws belonging to what?; inscrutable
trapezoidal nuggets of black plastic; the mateless sock, mitt. Us.