Fifteen Puzzle

Stainless steel, four by four

fifteen squares slide and click.

White and red, chrome and thin

As fifteen paper sheets.

A Christmas gift from another life.

It came in the stocking, enchanted

My shining eyes. My fingers played

the steel grid, white and red.

Red and white.

It came in a little red pounch

With a little silver button

That clicks when you close it.

Time hasn't changed the fifteen puzzle

with it's set of patterns to arrange.

It's set of puzzles to delight and tease.

Then why is there another in the pouch?

What did I put there, hide there,

When I knew it was lost,

When I knew I had lost?

Not square but round.

Not steel but gold.

Not touched but worn.

Not solved but born.

A promise made and broken.

A pattern that unraveled.

A rending what was spoken.

A maze that's yet untraveled.

The little puzzle in the pouch

comes with diagrams on paper

showing where the numbers go

to see if you can match it.

The last puzzles are the trick,

The lesson of the little square.

No solution will ever stick.

The pattern's never fair.

I think, dear friend of red and white,

White and red

I see the lesson now.

See, your pouch is yours again.