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"The Lost Glove"

By Ada LimónPosted Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at 12:31 PM ET

Listen to Ada Limón reading this poem.

does not miss the flesh of your left palm,
instead it is content in its bed of grass and
garbage. You, also, do not miss the glove.

You watched it go. On the way to the bar
you passed it. Old Red found it once,
brought it in. You looked away

into the bottled mirror, which was not
away at all, but rather, back at
you, all the while it pointed, the rips in the seams

opening like one thousand mouths. No,
it does not want you back. It wants people to
know who sits in the bar stool is a liar,

an absentee landlord, and how you forgot,
how the goldfish forgets she's already eaten
and goes on drinking her air. You felt the

fingerprint of something, but not the finger,
almost a pleasant pressure, walking backwards
through the door, until, the leather wet with April,

the inside rotted out like a body, it found its way
to the curb and became all things dismissed,
the anger blistering in the throat, the handcuff

of obligation and it lay there, in the daylight
saying, Do not forget what I accuse you of, saying,
do not forget that You are the you in this poem.

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Ada Limón lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is the recipient of a NYFA award, a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship, and the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry. She is the co-curator of Pete's Big Salmon.

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