Transitory

Marbles keep appearing at my feet:

Transparent green and blue cat eye swirls. 

 

It’s 97 degrees and I’m in a cold bath

watching love island on a tiny rectangle 

in another tiny rectangle called my phone. 

 

I imagine one day I’ll reminisce:

“Do you remember when I had no AC in the heat wave

and I nearly cried over a gas meter 

after moving heavy boxes for 40 days 

lost my wallet’s contents,

ordered take-out from a ghost,

became something more 

slippery and ethereal, 

chilled on ice like flat champagne,

as I plotted an upward trajectory 

toward solidity?” 

 

In one week I’ll have gas and cool air. 

In two all my plastic payment squares, 

arrived by mail and in four 

Everything hung so neat. 

Pretty soon all my chrysalis mucus 

will be unstuck from the drain. 

 

And maybe in six months, even nine,

an orb made of glass will 

arrive from obscurity to remind me: 

what is lost can always be found. 

 

​