Dealing with Loss

The words spill from the page,
pooling on the hardwood floor
they'd paid for out of the proceeds
of plying the flesh trade in Highgate Cemetery.
(She'd been disgusted at first
but it was all right when you got used to the smell
and as Don had said: the dead have needs too.)

She gathers them up by scooping with both hands;
dumps them on the coffee table
where 'loss' becomes stuck between two boards
that split from the heat of the gas fire last winter
when it was so cold the dog peed in the kitchen
and it froze.

She casts about for something
to pry the errant word out
and picks up a letter opener
but the word shatters when it leaves its wooden embrace,
an S sliding under the skirting
never to be seen again.

No matter.

A pair of pliers turns its loss
into IS LOST