Lost in the Woods
The path’s dark dirt cushioned my soles
in shoes. I walked up and out of woods
to the street of Cape Cod homes,
an unmarked car’s open door, a flashed
badge’s spread silver wings and blue dot,
the detective’s gray hair, high hairline,
his clean-shaven face. We rode around
down to neighbors in front of a house.
Four years old, I’d wandered off.
The dark corner outside our art class
held light blades like icicles. You asked,
Why aren’t you talking to me? I love you,
I didn’t say to your face. I talked plenty
to others, gave you the silent treatment.
I didn’t know to speak. Fifteen then,
now dust, you are alive in your sisters,
you go your way, a path in eternity’s woods.
I love you in elms’ shade near a river,
in the black of your eyes and your hair.
I walk up out of woods to your hand’s
charcoal drawings on paper, brushes
in jars, long tables, the dark corner
of your question, and the unmarked car’s
open door. You live in a white house
on a hill on Roosevelt Ave and in dreams.
Why aren’t you talking? I didn’t think
I was lost. I walked into, up out of woods.
The brown bomber bus pulled away
in a cloud. Across the sunlit street you
in a white blouse and long black hair, lit
the day, your lithe stride, going to school.
Now, eyes so brown they are black
animate a red bow mouth, a chin’s light
cleft, a long angular face’s olive tone.
Slender frame, quiet voice, all you are,
dearest, lives forever in your sisters.
- © Peter Mladinic 2023
Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.
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