Unclaimed
An inventory of what nobody came back for
One umbrella for every day of rain since March,
each folded the way its owner folded it.A left glove, still in the shape of a grip.
A cello, which someone must have noticed later.
A box of exam scripts, marked.
A wedding hat in a bag from a shop that has closed.A set of keys to a house in a town I have never been to,
the fob worn smooth by one particular thumb.
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Teeth, once. A prosthetic leg. An urn,
which we keep on the high shelf, labelled, out of courtesy.People come in describing things
better than they ever described each other:the scratch along the clasp, the name inside the collar,
the exact blue. We listen. We nod. We go to look.Most do not come at all.
After the months the rules allow, we sell what can be sold.The urn stays on the high shelf.
Each spring we dust it and write the date again.
Conclusion
A lost property office is an archive of what people stopped holding without meaning to. Most of it is never collected. Some of it is not the kind of thing anyone should have to come back and ask for.
