The Letting Go

by Laurie Koensgen

Things come loose:
unruly curls of hair
your ears can’t secure;

threads that hold the buttons
of your overcoat, abraded
by the shivers in your chest.

Pearls become unstrung; perhaps
they clatter down the drain.
Convictions slacken.

I am here, in the margin
of this languid afternoon.
I seem to have lost something.

— from Juniper Volume 3, Issue 2