(Authors note: I realize this is more short story than poem. I hope you find it poetic as well. Apologies in advance if this is not an appropriate forum.)
Have You Seen This Girl ?
I sat sleepy eyed one morning enduring yet another cardboard and treebark bran flavored bowl of breakfast with milk, 2 percent of course, and I stared at the carton.
First I reviewed the measures of various fat content, and nutritional values listed as a matter of law. And as usual, I thought of you. This time by way of pondering the plight of the American Dairy Farmer and remembering it was the “corporatizing” of the independent dairy farms which led your family to other uses for the land they had raised dairy cows on for over a century. And I missed you terribly.
To quickly shake the associated feelings of loneliness, and your face from my mind, I was drawn to the deep dark eyes of the child who was missing and apparently exploited on the other side of the carton. She had innocent, kind eyes that indicated she wouldn't even harm an insect. Curious eyes that would watch an insect for hours as it munched on grasses and leaves she fed it.
She would be two years grown and two years older since last seen in blue jeans and a t-shirt in Amarillo, Texas, in the company of her biological father who was possibly armed, dangerous, and driving a pickup truck towards Mexico. Or Canada.
And it struck me. You needed to be on the side of a milk carton. 2 percent of course. At some point in our life together, you had been kidnapped. Whoever was responsible had gone to a lot of trouble to replace you, to carefully drop you right back into my life. It was a great attempt but finally my belief that the real you would never do the things you did to me were validated. You had the misfortune of actually having an “evil twin” and corporatized or not, it seemed only the Dairy Council could help, since there is no Center For Missing and Exploited Adults.
Big red letters screaming “Have You Seen This Girl ? ” were what we needed now. God knows I had recent photos, and could describe all of your features-distinguishing or not.
I think tomorrow, I'll have French Toast.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on my work at www.emotionalorphan.net.
