The Literary Review
LOST GLOVE
I lose one glove on the street
between an ATM and a drugstore.
I don’t know how it happened.
If I knew, the glove wouldn’t be lost.
I got on my bike, got off, and didn’t have the glove.
I retrace my path to look for the missing glove.
It is black and should be easy to spot.
I see two black gloves on the street,
but they are rubber gloves,
not leather gloves like mine.
I don’t even want to pick up the rubber gloves.
Who knows where they’ve been?
I can’t find my lost glove,
and it was tattered, anyway,
so I throw away the remaining glove.
the one I haven’t lost.
It’s time to get a new pair of gloves.
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
LOST PENS AND PENCILS
xxx
I have misplaced my pens and pencils;
I’ve left them at a desk I’ve moved away from.
I find the writing instruments in a pan of water.
Why are they there? Won’t they be damaged?
These aren’t the kinds of pens that have reusable ink,
the kind with cartridges that can be cleaned in water.
I don’t care, as long as I can still write with them.
Picking them out of the water is not pleasant.
I have to put my hand in to get the writing tools.
The water is blue-black from the ink.
The pencils are soggy; the wood shafts are soaked.
The pens are a lost cause, really.
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
FOUND GLOVES
I lose my gloves,
the ones without fingers
that I wear while biking.
They were in my back pocket
and now they’re gone.
I was in a grocery store,
and I’ll have to walk each aisle
that I just walked, to find them.
I start back to the store,
and while crossing the street
I see a black crumpled mass on the ground.
It could be someone’s discarded facemask,
but it is my gloves,
in the middle of a crosswalk.
They might have been run over
by a car or two.
They are dusty with sand
but they are not ripped or torn.
I don’t have to go back into the store
to look for them.
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
- Thaddeus Rutkowski
