Once when my sister was over, she was watching me fold laundry as we talked. When I got to the bottom of the basket, where all the mismatched socks were, she said “Wow, you have a graveyard of socks.” This phrase, a graveyard of socks, has stuck in my mind ever since. I think about it every time I do laundry and see all those mate-less socks in the bottom of the basket. I think to myself, where did they all go? This poem seeks to capture the mundaneness of this very ordinary and regular confusion.

---

Where did they all go,

All the socks that left their mates behind?

Washed out to sea, maybe, careless and free

Or tumbled into lint, their integrity finally failing.

Perhaps some simply never made it to the basket

Hidden under a dresser or a bed or chair

Tired of being tread upon.

Should I start over fresh

Simply throw these ones away

Assuming that I’ll never be able match them?

I’m sure that some have gone to the landfill

And some have been eaten by the dog

And maybe there are some tucked into the sleeve of shirt

That is seldom worn, or has been given away.

I would like to set a limit

For how long I hang onto a matchless sock

Before taking it to the garbage with yesterday’s cans

and tonight’s dinner scraps.

But I don’t like giving up hope

That one day the missing will be restored,

And that the forgotten will be rediscovered,

And all things will all be put into their proper places.

So I keep the socks

To remind myself.