MISSING

web | The Sun Is but a Morning Star

I am the daughter who went out with the girls,
never checked back in and nothing marked my "last
known whereabouts," not a single glistening petal.

Horror is partial; it keeps you going. A lost
child is a fact hardening around its absence,
a knot in the breast purring Touch, and I will

come true. I was "returned," I watched her
watch as I babbled It could have been worse...
Who can tell
what penetrates? Pity is the brutal
discipline. Now I understand she can never
die, just as nothing can bring me back

I am the one who comes and goes;
I am the footfall that hovers.

1995

© Rita Dove
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 21.11.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010