HIS BLUE CUP (I DIDN'T WRITE IT, BUT I WISH I DID.)

His Blue Cup, by Stephen Dobyns

Over the years--and Heart has had many years--
numerous objects have slipped from his possession,
some were lost, some fell apart, some got stolen.
That cowboy doll he loved as a child,
does a piece of it still remain? and the pen
he's been looking for all week, where does it hide?
His favorite blue cup, which the dog broke,
the green linen shirt that at last wore out,
the Chevy convertible that wound up in the junkyard--
Heart has come to think that all these objects are together
along with absent friends, departed family members,
and pets that have traveled over to the great beyond.
Somewhere, he believes, there's a place made up
of previous houses, former gardens, and furnished
with the various furniture his hands have touched.
There missing friends recline on once-loved chairs.
A cat gone for twenty years naps beneath a burning lamp.
Lost clothes fill the closets, lost books line the shelves.
The trees in front, cars in back. Heart would know them all.
These days Heart's mind sometimes wanders.
He's in a daze, he's drifted off or gathering wool,
and he thinks at such times he, too, has disappeared,
that he's rambling through his composite house,
sipping coffee from his blue cup; tossing a ball
for a mutt he owned when he was six, or walking
arm in arm with a friend not seen for a dozen years.
You look pale, the friend says, you've gotten thinner.
I've been away, says Heart. I've been away.