21 November 2010

Lost and Found Again

For day 18 of the PAD challenge. Prompt: a "lost and found" poem.

moving from lost to found all she
needed were the right co-ordinates,
internal gps did the rest--
sorting through all the noise, the
murmuring meant to distract, the
dripping tap diverting thought (what
was that, then, I wanted?) as
she stands, in stocking feet, on the
threshhold of the bedroom, framed there,
held, for a moment, as if in a
memory box (this scrap of blanket, blue, this
carbon copy of a bill of lading, yellow, the
rough brown of paper, wrinkled deeply, that once
wrapped flowers)

and has she found some shade of
self again? retrieved, like
a blue wool balaclava from the
bottom of the box: found (amongst all
the clobber of chilren's things, some
marked with names, more
without, the scarves twisting
into accidental knots)

....

landmarks on the map are
not to scale - legends for schools,
public parks, houses of worship,
all in primary colors, the filiments of
railway lines snaking, sinuous,
off the four corners of the page

....

so lost in thought, coming to the
findings, finally, at the bottom of
a jewellery box, broken glimmerings of
metal, found after all these
years, the necklace, too, of green
stones she thought lost, how he played
with the clasp that final night

....

flotsam, jetsam, the effluvia of
all our days lost, found, lost
again, pendulum moving back and
forth, the tick-tock of sun/moon
evermore

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