Loss   Consider the stages: that awful jolt — it’s gone. You pat your pockets — it’s not there. Like flu’s onset, something toxic and molten rampages through your veins. It’s nowhere to be found. Someone must have stolen it. But who, and how, and why? Maybe you dropped it. Retrace your steps, call yourself a ditz. When did you see it last? What are your options, what are you down to? How could you be so stupid? Retrace your steps again, check for it under the cushions — yes, a piece of your heart has been ripped away. You lecture yourself, interrogate yourself, try magical thinking, a prayer to Saint Anthony, any god who will listen. Crying doesn’t help, nothing helps. It’s gone, man.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont September 2025