Everyone else had gone to dance
around a man and woman lifted on chairs,
into the sky of the future of their love,
when he pushed away his plate, rolled up
his white sleeve, showed me the number
on his arm and rubbed it
as if asking it to grant him
three wishes.
If and when the war is over, the dead man’s days will seem longer.
We cry out for peace like a prayer.
We yank weeds on our knees like a prayer.
Rays crisp Renée’s pepper plants to umber;
sprouts speak their final pleas like a prayer.
Image: “Terry’s Keys” by Kim Beckham. “What You Thought You Lost” was written by Wendy Videlock for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Every time it snows, she walks twelve blocks
and makes a snow angel in front of the Supreme Court
for her son who was shot and killed
two blocks away seven years ago by a boy
who was shot and killed three weeks later.
The bullet craves the warmth of a body,
but forgets the body it leaves. Allow
me the metaphor, this aliveness
of everything—the last leg of the trail, scarring
the mountain’s rigid face.