napowrimo - april 3

Today's prompt is simply, "Write about something that scares you." I have written two poems - only after they began to emerge did I realize they're related.

Gone

I wasn’t watching –
and he was gone.
I push past laughing faces,
legs, shoes walking,
but can’t find him.
Sometimes he’d pull away,
fearless, laughing,
following other people,
or butterflies.
How often had I told him,
“Stay by me.”
I call his name
again, again, again.
It’s impossible to believe

he’s gone, but he is.

I have lost him.
I awake wet-faced
remembering my child
is a man, long safe.
In the darkness, only
a ticking clock
watches me.

Wanda McCollar

This is Just to Say Goodby

My spine is shrinking
My shoulders rounding
My flesh is becoming seawater
My bones show through, black and jagged,
I have split in two
Even the most insensitive can see
I'll soon be gone.

Only a few even care.

I am Chacaltaya, Malospina,
Katiah, Perito-Moreno,
Perteze, names sliding over your tongue
as you did over ours. We’re gray smudges
from satellites too far
to sense the loss of our leaving
what we marked pre-history,
too far to understand
rivers must cease reliable flows,
lakes must become basins
to brim over, seas must rise.
We’ll all be gone soon.

Ours are voices you can’t hear,
it's not your concern.

Not your generation,
not your children’s
not your nations'
not your concern.

Wanda McCollar