TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

I’m a keeper, by which I mean I keep things. I’m sentimental. I squirrel away objects that are precious to me—in drawers and boxes and file cabinets. But sometimes I hide things so well, I lose them. It’s frustrating when I can’t locate something and know I’m the only one to blame. Maybe this has happened to you: the place you stash something is so safe, it’s safe even from you! 

I’ve misplaced—or lost—many things in my life, but a few come to mind because losing them pained me. A few Polaroid pictures of a loved one who’s gone now. Some vintage clothes I was attached to. A long handwritten letter.

At first, losing those irreplaceable items felt like losing the keys to that loved one, that place, that time. But I eventually realized the doors to those memories are still there — and to my surprise, they’re always unlocked. I can open them with my mind … my imagination … whenever I want. 

Do I wish I still had the things I treasured—the keys to those doors? Yes, of course I do.  But I don’t need them.

Today’s poem explores memory and loss—and how objects can help us resurrect the past. 

I Have Lost It
by Monica Ferrell

It’s gone missing, that old notecard
With something crude written
By a man once in a summer
I remember as terribly hot: I read it

Reclined outside in the park
Paging through this huge volume
He’d sent by special messenger
To my address. Wet

As an oasis with afternoon sweat, 
I felt voluptuous and infinite
Covered in lines of smutty poetry
That warbled of killing deer,

Diamonds, and the Shah of Iran.
My body was dotted with glue
Upon which petals of oleander
Had fallen and fluttered poisonously there.

Then the sky above the park curled
Into a fist, grew dark: I hailed a cab 
And rode through claps of fizzy thunder 
Amid a downpour to his crooked little door.

His pajamas were damp.
We drank gin until we didn’t.
Next morning, in the dregs at the bottom
Of my glass, I saw a bloated ant:

Its black, round blobs appeared relaxed, 
Loosened somehow. Well,  said the man,
I guess she found what she was looking for.
And because he wasn’t exactly wrong,

I forgot the door, forgot the buzzer.
I slipped the card back in its book
Though every now and then I took
It out to sniff for a scent.

"I Have Lost It" by Monica Ferrell from THE FUTURE © 2026 Monica Ferrell. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.