RATIONALE FOR A LOSS
Esther Lee

    for George Carlin

More winter gear went missing:
         Your favorite beret—that red wool turtleshell
you turned your back on. In one teeny moment,

it just up & walked away. Or maybe, when
you weren’t looking, swiped right off your head,

fish-hooked either by God or the testy Girl Scout
selling Thin Mints you wouldn’t buy. Like your scarf

knitted by a friend in a remote country. All three—the scarf,
friend, country—you may never see again, or perhaps

they’ve been forsaken to the Heaven of Missing Things
where one can find all long-lost toys, beloved pets,

and forgotten parts of yourself—the combing
of corners, the loosening of doubt. You step through

clockwise: flip cushions, open/
close drawers, check behind headboards for any
abandoned clue.

Esther Lee’s poems will be forthcoming in New Orleans Review, Caketrain, and Puerto del Sol. Her work has been nominated for a 2004 Pushcart Prize, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and selected as a “Discovery” / The Nation Award semi-finalist.

© 2007 Swink, Inc.