Where

Every poet has one,
a poem that’s been lost,
a finished poem that has vanished
like a cloud’s contour
ravished by wind.

No hard copy. Not in a computer file.
Not on a hard drive.
Not even on a flash drive.
A poem you lavished love on,
and time, devotion.
Gone, like a moved-away friend
whose new address you can’t fine.

A forest is razed.
Where are the maples, the deer?
Where is the person who will stay
in your life, to make it make sense?
Where are the stanzas you hoped
would validate who you are?
Where is the stranger you met
who would’ve given value to your days
had something happened between you two.

When something/anything goes missing,
the light of it burns in you,
a nightlight that won’t dim.
The ardor you feel for the misplaced
is replaced by panic,
a need to search, retrieve.
And when you don’t locate it,
resignation doesn’t come.
Only recollection arrives,
like the memory of an “almost” romance,
something that got away--
like your poem you can’t find--
gone before it had a chance
to add to your life.