Glovebox

There are those thoughts that sit broodingly
as though in the back of a drawer
that you only see when you’re looking
for gloves on the first cold day of the year
and there they are, staring at you, thick-browed
and angry. Embarrassed, you slam the drawer closed,
forgetting even about the gloves, even
though your hands are numb from the cold.

You screw up your face and open the drawer
again, slowly, girding yourself this time against
the shock so now when you see them seeing you
you see them back. Pull them out. Turn them over
in your hands - they can’t hurt you any more,
you think to yourself willing yourself to
face them again after such a long time.

And so you’ve found they’ve changed, cold
in the back of the drawer near the wall all
this time, they’re rougher in places, shining
from smoothness in others, altogether a different
color than you remember. These thoughts
aren’t ones you can ever remember having.
Now you’ve lost a friend, however terrible,
and you put the corpse back in the drawer
gingerly as you remove the gloves and put
them on, thinking, mostly to yourself,
See you in the spring.