The Middle Man

There Is & There Was

Between the cushions of the couch,

There is a ball of lint,

and an unpaired sock,

That yearns for his soulmate,

In the drawer upstairs.

There is two halves of a whole bobby pin,

Twenty seven cents in change,

And tiny food, for tiny mice.

At the bottom of the hall closet,

There is a loose shoelace,

Fraying, without its cap,

And a missing button,

Round and black and shiny.

There is a singular shoe,

Bent,

And hidden in the corner.

In the kitchen cabinets,

There are broken pieces of caulk,

And the top of a tupperware container,

With an unknown sticky residue coating its ridges.

Against the side,

There is the catch of a mousetrap,

And a miniature cork,

Its cells spaced close and tight.

Beneath the bed,

There is a t-shirt,

Wrinkled and worn and too small.

There is a dog-eared book,

With a missing cover,

And a school paper,

Covered in Xs.

Dust bunnies dwell,

In every corner,

Against the walls.

In the home,

There is a mom,

A brother, and another,

And a sister.

There is a dog and a cat.

There was a father,

And a lizard,

3 cats and 4 frogs,

And too many fish to count.