I dropped a pen and had to reach

I dropped a pen and had to reach,

and my face was level with the dust,

the way dust lives under things,

gray and settled, and there was

a hair tie I didn't know I'd lost,

one from a time I was trying

to be someone different, and a book

with a spine so broken it wouldn't close,

and I lay there on my stomach

looking at the archaeology of my own

carelessness, the way things

slip under the edge of living

and become someone else's problem,

or nobody's, just existing in the dark

until you have to reach for something

and find instead all the things

you stopped looking for.

I could clean it. I don't think I will.

It's easier to know what's down there

than to face the fact of it,

the way I let things go, the way

I stop reaching for them,

the way they become less mine

the longer they stay out of sight.