Lost

Where is it now, the wallet

he wore in his back pocket,

sent to me from the coroner

in an envelope, all that was returned

from his broken body?

Not t-shirt (cut free

from his still-warm chest.)

Not sock or shoe.

Coveted, my last remnant

of him, the animal skin

I held to my cheek

and inhaled, eyes closed.

Stolen by strangers, every room

of the house tipped askew,

drawers upended, a jumble of despair

through which I raked

in search of anything left behind.

Small solace in knowing everything

we once treasured still exists

in some form — ash, particle,

entombed at the dump.

Did the robbers toss aside

the expired credit cards,

the note to meet a friend

for dinner one day too late?

The fifth-grade school photo of me

he carried for twenty years?

Photos of our sons, still children?

No cash, no checks, value only 

in what thieves never want. 

In what I want back, knowing

there is no coming back from the dead.