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.