Papa Poet

I lost a poem. I thought it was on my laptop. It wasn’t. Memory stick? Not there either. Desktop? Nope. My last hope was my journal. Most of my poems at least start there and perhaps that beloved book still contained its essence. But no. It probably sounds silly but I grieved its loss, really. I didn’t write for several weeks hoping it would appear, walk through the door like a wayward child restored to her parents. It didn’t but this one did.

Poem Lost

I lost a poem.
It slipped into the crack of deleted things,
though caressed and created with love things
sometimes go to regions unknown.
Is there a repository,
an isle of misfit files waiting for Santa
wishing their noses wouldn’t glow?
Or is there a God
who rescues them all
and posts them on his fridge saving
scribbled papers and colored prayers far past reason
to remind Him of our efforts to praise
or holding onto evidence with which to confront,
like my Dad when I stole a bicycle lock
and hid in the bedroom hoping
he would not find out, or forgive.
But he did neither
what I deserved or expected,
instead he took me back
to the store, lock in hand, to share my humiliation.
I hope God has my poem.
I hope when he walks to the fridge
for a nightly bowl of vanilla ice cream
he pauses in passing and smiles.