Margen
The neighbourhood has a kind custom: when someone finds a lost glove, they leave it on the park railing, in plain sight, in case its owner comes back for it. I've walked past for years. I never gave it a thought.
This winter I started counting them. In December there were three. In January, seven. This morning, eleven, lined up on the iron spikes like a row of frozen waves hello. It was seeing them all together that made me notice: all eleven are left-handed.
I asked the newsstand man, who knows everything. He shrugged: "People lose the left one more," he said, "coat-pocket thing." That night I lost a glove. The right one. I retraced my steps, street by street, all the way to the railing.
My glove wasn't there. The eleven left ones were still in place, motionless, fingers pointing at the sky. I took off the one I had left and hung it with the others, slowly, like someone settling an old debt.
Somewhere in this neighbourhood, in some flat, someone keeps a drawer full of right hands. I hope it keeps them warm. I hope I never learn what it applauds.