Where I left the car keys,
the remote for the TV, that letter
from the lawyer, my spectacles and pills.
I must have left my gloves somewhere.
And as for that umbrella that the kids
gave me last Christmas…
Lost objects occupy these latter days
like an invading host, demand their dreary
ransom of the hours spent in searching –
pockets, drawers, desks, and sofas –
to locate whatever’s missing.
Might there be, somewhere,
an eternal Lost and Found, a place
where folk and missing things are reunited,
where a sympathetic clerk roams miles of shelves
and cubby holes until he finds just what it is
you’re looking for and sets it on the counter
with a smile? And if such a place existed,
what would I ask for first?
– J. Barrie Shepherd
