Her Name is Lost: A Poem of Memory and Place

 

God's safe house for battered

weary spirits wasn't hers anymore

on that day it happened.

Shame crept up her toes her calves

Quickly sweeping across her chest

 

Her name is Lost.

 

I see Lost eyes

As they held the Other's

Voice shouteing"Wrong"

in the silence canyon

between them

 

sorrow sputtered and

burned then while

embers crackle

years later

the memory lives

"Not a good idea"

followed by Lost's name, sound

Which she still hears, each

vowel stuffed syllable

 

Her name is Lost

 

Infant apology

born as breath

burning through

her throat

now a hobbling

elderly soul, "Sorry"


Lost, long left this

supposed safe house

of someone else's

God


the what happened

next is missing

just as the Other's name

sits on someone

else's recollection

rather than on the

speckled green laminate

floor where Lost

memory still lives