Molly Frederick’s most recent poem to appear here was “Winter Shamans” (January 2018).

In the Sitting Room
By Molly Frederick

As I sat reading—something dropped—and
     I don’t know what it was.
A whole day has passed, and still I don’t know.
Haven’t found it yet.
Was it an envelope settling on the desk? Was it
a furry puff come off the pussy willows
in the dark green vase?
Was it the landscape painting on the opposite
wall slipping lower in its frame?
Did something out of sight quietly settle inside
a clock?
Could it be the red scarf falling from
a brass hook in the hall?
A leaf come loose from dried flowers
on the mantle?

I looked around the sitting room—it was undisturbed.
Nothing had changed.
Or had it?

Did my inner ear catch the faint sound of red wine
maturing in the next room?
Did a pen roll off the desk onto plush carpet? Did
a paperclip shift in the alabaster bowl?
What could have fallen? A fragment of time?
An instant departing in unusual haste?
Was it gravity letting go of something it no longer
needed to hold?

I keep wondering, can’t let it go. And yet as the days
go by—somehow I know—
I will never hear just that sound, that one sound.
Again.