With No Apologies
Posted: November 13th, 2014, 12:14 pm
She disappeared on a Friday
morning with a flock of Monarchs
left the bare wooden floors
of her three room apartment
for Illinois, or maybe Missouri,
no one was really sure
no message, no note, nothing
for her father but an empty bottle
of shampoo and her bicycle
in the middle of the living room
When she was younger and rode
near the banks of the Chippewa,
fisherman would turn toward shore
to watch a young girl, legs churning,
while their own fish flapped
in wooden buckets
At a town dance, a young man
wanted her to go home with him,
but she didn’t know how to speak
his language
In early autumn afternoons, she
rode her bicycle into the fields
along the railroad tracks, searching
for wildflowers: Indian paintbrush,
tiger lilies with their look of tangerine;
she spoke to birds: meadowlarks,
the blue arcs of barn swallows,
to Canada geese flying home
In dreams where she rode through
lightning flashes, she told herself
to leave, told herself to sit
with her apparitions, to let them
touch her, to search for happiness
in a daylight that really mattered
morning with a flock of Monarchs
left the bare wooden floors
of her three room apartment
for Illinois, or maybe Missouri,
no one was really sure
no message, no note, nothing
for her father but an empty bottle
of shampoo and her bicycle
in the middle of the living room
When she was younger and rode
near the banks of the Chippewa,
fisherman would turn toward shore
to watch a young girl, legs churning,
while their own fish flapped
in wooden buckets
At a town dance, a young man
wanted her to go home with him,
but she didn’t know how to speak
his language
In early autumn afternoons, she
rode her bicycle into the fields
along the railroad tracks, searching
for wildflowers: Indian paintbrush,
tiger lilies with their look of tangerine;
she spoke to birds: meadowlarks,
the blue arcs of barn swallows,
to Canada geese flying home
In dreams where she rode through
lightning flashes, she told herself
to leave, told herself to sit
with her apparitions, to let them
touch her, to search for happiness
in a daylight that really mattered
