I see Lizzie everywhere –
in the neighbor’s yard,
on my front porch,
even in my bedroom, sitting there
waiting for her food.

I go to the front door ten times a day
And peer out, expecting to see her there.
I listen for her meow outside,
Worried she will feel abandoned if I don’t go quick

But Lizzie was never mine.
She was a wild pretty little thing
Who seemed to belong to no one.
She came and went as she pleased
And sometimes lay on my bed as if to comfort me.

So long Lizzie.
See ya.

Sitting at the striped crossing arm
In a one-eyed white Ford
Sunrise at my back
Red light blinking
A lullaby clanking
By the bell.

Gentle giants
Looming white
Arms flailing
Silent in the dusk
Where Cary Grant once ran
Through corn fields in a tidy blue suit.

POEM FOR A YOUNG GIRL GONE

I am sad.
The little mouse, alone now in its glass cage.
Waiting.
The room with nothing there like a life.
Or a life concluded at eight with pink slippers and dolls. And some videos of us when we were happy.
Nothing is there.
Where did she go?
Where does a person’s life go?
It evaporates into the air, except those few,
who leave behind a monument, a book, a creation of some sort
—or a child.