Continuing the Mystery of Unfound Things
Micki Blenkush
 
In second grade I steered my best friend 
around the playground
as though we were both on safari. 
We shuffled in spring boots
while I pointed to trash emerging
from beneath the melting snow
as promised revelation. 
 
There were no ordinary gum wrappers.
No arbitrary newspapers
wedged beneath hapless shrubs.   
Each day I commented on the lean
of fence posts, a half-buried glove,
sticks piled beneath the slide. 
 
For two weeks just she and me alone
walking the edge of the playground
until a smashed can led us
to the monkey bars
where we climbed until the next thing
steered us somewhere new. 
 
When Joann grew bored
I hid a piece of bark
in the teacher’s Kleenex box,
then feigned surprise
at the back of the room during math. 
I crayoned Keep Looking in blocky letters,
left it under her coat.  
 
After she joined her other friends
on the ordinary swings,
I penciled letters on a block of wood
professing love, of all things,
for Ricky the neighbor boy
then buried it in the sand.
 
I denied my own script
when his sister dug it up
and held it high
above her head.    
 
 










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About the Author: Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud, MN and works as a social worker. She was selected as a 2017-2018 fellow in poetry for the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series program and was a 2015 recipient of an Emerging Artist Grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board. Her writing has appeared in a number of journals, including: Gyroscope Review, South 85 Review, Star 82 Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Sequestrum, and Typishly. More can be found here: mickiblenkush.com

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