I'm twenty minutes late and the car is running

I'm twenty minutes late and the car is running.

I grabbed the good shirt, the one you washed,

but when I reached to pull the collar tight

my finger found a gap where the plastic should be.

A button missing from a shirt is a small betrayal,

a loose thread I pulled until the seam went slack.

Now there's a jagged white mouth in the fabric

and I'm standing here, shaking, looking for you.

The sewing kit is a joke of tangled neon string,

with nothing that matches this shade of blue.

I’ll have to pin it and hope the jacket hides

how quickly things come apart when you touch them.