Running Late

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RUNNING LATE


Where you find the thing you were 

looking for is, more often than not, 


the first place you looked. Look,

we’ve all rodeo-clowned around 


for our keys, torn up the house, 

asked a spouse before flirting

 

with despair, only to sheepishly admit

we found them there in the pocket 


of our blue jeans, the very pair 

we patted down those thirty minutes back. 


Or thirty years, or eighty, in fact,  

if you’ve got the genes. What I mean is, 


you can look all your life for what 

you’ve always carried with you, 


and maybe some of us have to, 

peeling each surface back like a scab


till we find beneath every empty 

couch cushion nothing but a handful 


of crumbs and heaping portion  

of how hungry we are to get there. 

 

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