This morning I found something important
in the lint screen of my drying machine,
but I don’t know for sure what I’ve lost. It’s not
the Ark of the Covenant or a mysterious stone
to rescue children. The tiny balls of shriveled

paper could be anything—work’s 1040 for
the year’s taxes, my mom’s pound cake recipe
I asked for last time I visited, an idea
for a poem that would’ve won awards—
and there’s no one here to help figure it out.

No Indiana Jones with fedora and bullwhip
and dry-clean only leather jacket; no one
to excavate, fit the pieces together, match
jagged edge to crooked corner. Even in
my ignorance, I’m sure I’ve lost more

than I’ve found—these easy quarters
that roll and bang the drum on occasion,
each coin a small, rare gift. Maybe there’s
no reason now to mourn; maybe it’s only
a tissue once knotted with phlegm.

But maybe it was a map to where
this life will go, something charted
with predictions I could learn to read,
something telling me how to prepare,
how to be ready.