Louis McKee

LOSS

When I was young I left
my new kid gloves on a bus
coming home from school,
said they must have fallen
from my pockets—my mother
didn’t want to hear that
I hated gloves, that I liked cold
hands, fingers, and pockets
they fit into better. I had a cap;
this was years later—I wore it
everywhere, and one day walking
down the avenue, for no reason
at all, I took it off and threw it
into the open window of a bus
that was passing by. I cursed,
later, its being missing,
but that was all part of it,
preparing for loss. Everything,
sooner or later, goes—
finds a bus heading somewhere.

—from Rattle #24, Winter 2005