Whenever I leave to go away
For more than an hour, or say,
Fifty miles, I want to go back and check
The oven, the iron, the thermostat . . .
It’s easy to forget to do things.

And so I worry when I leave.
In all the years, unnecessarily.
Or mostly: that time with the coffeepot.
Too many miles, so a neighbor stopped,
Unplugged it, “no worries—easy to forget.”

The thing is, I do not want to leave, to go—
Not ever, not anywhere, even though
There are other good places, seen and unseen.
But I feel better here. My dog, my routine.
I never forget why I do not want to leave.

And now you are leaving, slantwise in your bed
Still joking. But weeks not months they said.
Maybe days. Of course they don’t say that.
But weeks are made of days, I know that fact.
I worry that you worry what you might forget:

Will you leave on the computer, the garden hose—
And that upstairs window—so easy to forget to close?
Will you want to make a final check, a call?
Rest assured: Unplugged. All.
Forget? We go on only knowing we cannot.