the mislaid

The Mislaid


It was a strange October day, yet it behaved as that month
does, blowing leaves off trees and filling gutters into fast
flowing rivers where a child can launch a matchbox and call
it a ship, it was just as I had misplaced something of value by
my own carelessness and now it was out of my reach.

Went into a bar, beside me sat a blond, big busted woman in
her late forties, she looked like the archetypical barmaid, only
she was a cook at the Excelsior Hotel, up the street, on her day
off. I told her I had lost a thing of great sentiment, together we
went from bar to bar looking for this nameless thing.

Woke up in a strange bedroom, pink, and it had teddy bears
strew around, mostly on the floor; I looked out of the window
it was raining and remembered that yesterday was my birthday.
The archetypical was sleeping, in the grey morning light she
looked vulnerable and forty eight.