Rips, ©2014. Digital collage.
Desperate to Find You
Gas sputter, click, click, click
of the igniter,
kettle on
and whoosh the fragment
races by me
and I leap to catch it
like a comet’s tail,
a shard resuscitated
from a dream of you
long gone.
Lost you were
by the ocean.
Desperate to find you,
I amalgamated daughter
and sister,
cried out your name
again and again ’til howling,
each time more frantic,
each moment more despairing
that we would not, could never
anchor you to shore.
But when I did behold you
it was not you
as it never is
but my own little girl.
It as a haunting trick
to dream
and confuse
and long for you
like the smell of tangerine peel
in July.
Sarah Figlio