You said you’d leave a key
under the mat on the front stoop,
or was it taped atop the light fixture
just to the right of the door jamb top?

Well I checked both places
and there was no key to be found,
so perhaps it slipped out, got kicked
and someone absentmindedly took it

and saved it meaning one day
to return it, or tossed in in the nearest
garbage dumpster they could find,
or is wearing on a chain around their neck.

I did pause to consider that this key
could be a metaphor for your feelings
and that perhaps I was victim of my own
dream of a love that was never to be.

But that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

First published in Dreich , Issue 10, Autumn 2020 (Scotland)