Lost
Thirty-eight years; the things I've lost.
A large number of different coloured socks.
A whole room full of biros.
Enough pins to fill a couple of haystacks.
My youth, my unlined face,
my virginity.
My favourite book of poems by William Blake,
lost on a number 2 bus at Baker Street
along with three sandwiches.
Half a chapter on my computer when the lead fell out.
My innocence and naivety perhaps.
My blue anorak, a whole flock
of black umbrellas.
My close intimate infantile relationship with my mother.
A little bit of weight since July.
A clutch of smiling fuzzy girlfriends.
Enough hopes and causes to repopulate Oxford.
And one passionate, flawed, soft and glowing
love, mislaid somewhere across the Atlantic, and
try as I might,
though I scour my life like the woman with the lost coin,
I simply cannot lay my hands on her again.
But the universe recycles all its energy, so
maybe I'll find them all again
waiting for me
in the hereafter.
Oct 1996
