walking down a new street
at night, I lost a poem.
Drizzle beaded on lampposts;
mist circled the bare bulbs
suspended like electric moons.
Silent houses crouched together,
warmed by glowing porch lights.
An airplane disappeared
behind cloud smudges;
dripping elms flanked
the yellow “No Outlet” sign.
In the sodden dark,
the vast alone had shrunk
to one block, one house
on a leaf-wet street
where someone once lived.

– Lynn D. Gilbert

Author’s Note: This poem started out with losing a poem I was writing and ended up by losing myself.