VII. Conclusion

Tracking a package can be so easy,

going backward from any point to

the source. Other times, my watch

falls off my wrist and I don’t notice

until I reach for it and it’s gone.

You are like an old cotton sweater –

your bones clasped together by ligaments

slowly losing shape and deteriorating.

The twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity,

were abandoned on the red planet.

There was never any intention of bringing them back.

The watch was an expensive thing to lose.

The clasp on my necklace keeps giving way,

which is a kind of certainty I’m waiting to lose as well.

I’m waiting to find myself

huddled in the empty bathtub. Some days I wonder

if I ever had a watch in the first place.

I cried through your speech about money

and mortgages. I didn’t want to know

that you could add up so many things

and have them equal less than nothing.