Bucket Of Bolts

I’m an emotional bucket of bolts

at the anniversary of my wife's death.

Most, I would say, are five sixteenths

machine screws, though they range in size

from an eighth to a half,

mainly with the nuts still attached,

some floating free in the pail.

What makes me fret is personal:

loss, love, reflections on life, the usual,

overlying a concern for Humanity,

diffuse distress over wide distress—

the lack of Peace, Generosity, Order,

Governance that is not hypocritical;

all the while knowing myself lucky,

and that I've done little or nothing to earn it.

The feeling is a variant of glum glad anxiety,

just off the path of a gigantic,

swinging electromagnet.