MISSING
It was a hard winter
of metal rivers and iron beds
certain disorder
uncertain sleep.
In the coming
and going of doctors,
how many saw her?
How many tried to imagine
tragedy like a train
roaring through a house
as a family sat eating
toast and jam.
Near-zero breath
after doctors tell the family
one is missing.
Her small daughters
look down at their dresses.
Their father makes fists.
Mother's in a building
snow on the roof and
bars on the windows.
Imagine a winter so hard
that no birds survive
and nothing moves in the ice.
---S.K.
6 comments:
Very powerful imagery. Very lean. Appropriately austere. Very moving. Did you write that, Ms Shaw?
I was reminded of the following:
There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.
The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;
Somebody flings a mattress out, ––
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that, ––
I used to when a boy.
The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;
And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade
Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign, ––
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Yes, it's my poem.
Thank you for posting Emily's poem. It is appropriate to mine.
Heartbreaking. I wish I was unable to understand your poem as well as I do.
But we do, so we assist those trying to understand.
gosh darn it.... I wish I could write so well. But in the spirit of things I would like to add a verse...
I call it "an ode to an Ex-Governor"
There once was a young lass from Poughkeepsie
Who sang and danced and drank like a Gypsy
The words she sang were perverse
The steps never would she rehearse
And always she said, “Sailor do you miss me?”
But one moonlit night in Duluth
She imbibed copious amounts of Vermouth
“I miss the olives and gin
To complete my sin”
And all agreed she spoke the truth.
See, she had screwed her way from here to Manila
Every sailor, every ship in all the flotilla
“But my honor is noble and intact
though I make a living on my back
unlike that dumb whore from Wasilla”
.... oh well. I do try.
okjimm,
irrepressible!
The relentless attacks on Ms. Palen
Have not caught her weepin' and wailin.'
She's capitalized on and enjoyed
Being stigmatized. Although devoid
Of class she's now rich, and not ailin.'
};-)>
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