LOST LOCKET.

A WOMAN AND HER LOST LOCKET AND HER MOTHER'S PHOTO IN IT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She couldn’t find the heart
Shaped silver locket with her
Mother’s photo in it. She’d
Looked everywhere. She

 

Wondered if he’d sold it
As he had many of her
Treasured things, she found
Out later, after they’d parted.

 

It had been her mother’s final
Picture taken, like a last sacrament,
The last piece of bread changed
Into the Body of Christ and placed

 

Upon the tongue. She looked every
Place again where she’d looked
Before, pockets, boxes, even her
Underwear drawer where she’d

 

Kept some things out of his sight
(Although she suspected he’d
Looked even there moving his
Thieving fingers without concern

 

Or care). Her mother’s dead body
Which she’d found in the bath in
Chilled bloodied water drowned
Still came to mind, still played

 

In dreams, in her everyday each
Time she washed or bathed. She
Thought maybe he’d pawned it
For some extra cash to pay off

 

Debts or pay for drugs or booze.
The silver locket, heart shaped,
Her mother’s face looking out at
Her, the sad eyes, the pleading

 

Gaze. She searched high and
Low, in every place she could
Think, in wardrobes, chest of
Drawers, in old boxes, inside

 

Worn out shoes, even beneath
The kitchen sink, behind the
Pipes where she’d hidden things
From him in the last days. But no,

 

It wasn’t there, the heart shaped
Silver locket, with her mother’s
Final gaze looking sadly out,
Within it. Damn him for taking it.

Reviews

[emmah]

it's a moving story, heartbreakingly so. for me, as a reader, it felt like the story that was dripping in a palpable feeling of loss and grief. i could visualize the narrator's nightmarish existence with "him" - he who had no heart or soul, he who had, without care or concern, floundered precious moments and memories, in the callous, criminal pursuit of his ghosts. the narrator's dark perils of having to hide and protect her soul, shield from his evil gaze the "things" too precious to be called things, and even in that, the narrator's utter lack of belief in being able to have done so successfully. heartbreaking visions.
the tragic scene of her mother's passing away, a ghastly end to what obviously was a rather dark life, is haunting.
the narrator's feverish search for the one last remnant of her mother - the picture - her "final gaze" - something to hold on to, something to bring some semblance of finality, something to preserve for posterity the memory of the dark night that never ended in those eyes - it's a search that seems, from the very outset, a lost cause - but one that cannot be called off because too much is at stake, too much left to find. the last line is the final blow, the intensity of which no amount of preparedness can really protect her (or the reader from).
it's a dark, dark tale.
ps: i did have to read it aloud like a story, for the stanzas flowed into each other, at awkward junctures, fragmenting the verse erratically.

[Coyote Poetry]

Poem is very good. The story was sad and and a strong story. We pay for thing done in memory too. Even the simple silver locket become precious. A excellent poem.
Coyote