“Lost Thing” by Salem Loucks

between grandma’s garden gloves and

estate sale surfboard

wax i find

no surfboard– those are reserved

for reality only

surf-wax and wishing well

lenses

drip through cardboard boxes and

sharpied labels

between windswept mirrors on cliffside reflections

i find my shoes; once spraypaint obsidian

reveling in bleeding tatters of wildfire suns

now broken blistered,

peeling paint

in scratched pools of black screens i see

my jeans; scraggly joshua tree cut

to effervesce in desert’s best

even before it was mine they knew no one

“you are beautiful” whispers the inside of the belt

“you break me” whispers the bellbottoms

here even, my vest:

chinatown salvation army

carved up stitched back

onto my form

what am I, if not the vestiges

of dirges and

alleyway impulses, urges sinking

through secondhand selves

still learning my menagerie of minds

are but borrowed

bits and forgotten

finds

even here, papa’s lost kerchief

gossamer threaded, worn, warm,

the spiderwebbed scars pull back

my head of hair

what am I, if not a lost thing?

lost thing

Art is movement so Salem Loucks has always made art to stay moving and changing. They like putting pretty rocks in their pockets, writing poetry in stairwells, and playing bass in burning basements. Somehow, their best work is always done in transit.