the logic of buttons

remembering that things
have been forgotten,
not knowing what
or where?

the eyelet uncoupled
cannot find
the linchpin
defining
what has slipped
through the seams.

rifling through
the old dented tin
of collected
lost and founds,

the fingers grasp
for anything
that feels like a misfit

needing
home.

Reviews

[Lorry]

Your old dented tin of lost and founds sound surprisingly like one i possess, but mine is in the form of a clear goldfish bowl filled with words that deserve poetry to be their home but are still on the waiting list for much needed housing, as I rifle through it one more time and once more get stuck between the thought of what made me write down the word kerfuffle with stramash beside it in brackets and the thought of writing on that subject being relegated to a thought for another day.

[JustPlainHere]

Oh, I love the extended metaphor here! This was a treat to read.

[John the Baptist]

The buttons are a metaphor for parts of the past that have been forgotten, but without which life is incomplete. They are being sought to give life a wholeness it has lost. The search is intense, but nothing is in sight as yet

[Chris Shaw]

I love how you have used buttons here. My Nan and my mum used to have an old button tin, that rattled with its contents. All those odd and lost buttons waiting to be sewn in to a new home. Buttons I guess are like people. They need to belong somewhere.

Chris

[Michael Sun Bear]

Others have commented on your use of metaphor for certain aspects of the human condition, which is great, I want to add how much I enjoyed your stanza: rifling through…the old dented tin…of collected…lost and founds. It gives the poem a feeling of universality. Don’t we all have, or at least grew up with, that old dented tin?

[Buddhistboy73]

Wow!

This is such a simple, yet deep poem...

I love the way you use buttons to explain how we can all get a little lost in this life...

These are my favourite lines:

the fingers grasp
for anything
that feels like a misfit

I like the way this ends in in a hopeful way...

BB73
needing
home.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

trying to secure the misfit and giving it a home, there is so much that slips through the seams of life and often we just let it without paying attention. Your poem does pay attention.
j.

[Ayesha Faiz]

I liked this. It has a quite the touch of sadness to it. I really liked this line, "The fingers grasp for anything that feels like a misfit." Short and simple. Nice work Lara.

[red93]

I like this Lara, and I particularly like the fine details and the way the poem almost seems to unravel by the end. Really Excellent ✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️

[Pete]

nicely said with a creative metaphor. when things come undone, we'll grasp at anything that will reattach and secure it whether it makes sense or not. sort of like putting the genie back in the bottle.