How could you have known

that your jewel had become

just another hard-edged rock

that blended in with the ice floes,

over which your arctic hero

and his dogs must have trod,

leaving loosely stacked cairns

of silent, durable peas and breaded cod

and strategically planted

caches of frozen orange juice drums?

It was just more ice

to go snow blind in or mad

for the warmth and comfort

of a marriage bed.

How often did you go to that door

to retrieve another leftover single meal,

anemic slabs of turkey or pork

you’d laid to rest in a mashed potato plot?

You held the insurer’s second check

and sobbed. You’d foolishly believed

that when the power went out

there’d be something left in your life

that would not thaw and go bad and rot.

It would have shocked you to learn

that there was anything in your circumscribed world

that wasn’t open to plain sight.

But in the dark the metal rubbed against your fingers

like a missing finger

and disappeared when you turned on the light.

What a comfort it would have been to know

that your treasure was always

right there under your icycled nose.

And now you recall the widow’s lost coin

and the pearl of great price,

gather all your friends and rejoice

for that which was lost has been returned

no worse for wear

with a year’s store of brilliance to pour out.