I was thinking about a Thomas Hardy poem, a fragment of the poem, yesterday, and decided to try to find it in one or two of my collections of his work. I had recalled buying a copy of one anthology, The Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy, fairly recently, and set out to find the volume, which I thought was in my bedside table.

How could I be so sure? Because I had originally bought the book having read somewhere in another place that Philip Larkin had kept this very compilation by his bedside for many years, a recommendation if ever there was one. His version was likely the little blue original first published around 1930. These being quite expensive now (about $60 due to their antiquarian nature), I opted for a plain jane paperback from the 1970's, hoping that the contents were in fact the same.

Do you think I can find it? Despite extensive searches in all the usual and expected places I cannot locate this book. It seems to have disappeared, not unlike my wedding band, though that's another story altogether.

Now I am wondering whether I actually bought it, or if I dreamed it all up? Is it possible it was all in the imagination? The transaction seemed so real, the receiving of it, the unpackaging, but there is no record of purchase nor notification by email.

Where is a person from Porlock when you need one?