My contact lens popped out and vanished

My contact lens popped out and vanished

into the dark, so I’m down here, cheek to the wood.

It smells like old cedar and things I’ve avoided,

a landscape of lint and things that have fallen.

There’s a library book about gardening, three years

overdue, its cover felted in a thick, grey pelt.

And a single, crusty sock, stiff as a board,

hiding near a spider curled into a tight, dry fist.

I’m staring at the baseboard, at the grit,

and I don't want to get up. It’s quiet under here.

Everything is broken or forgotten, which feels,

if I’m being honest, a lot like coming home.