“O, to take what we love inside…” ~ Li-Young Lee
The day we looked for my mother
was the day she refused to be found.
And the week before that was a day
one of the women in their circle
walked into the surf as her husband
pleaded and threatened, brandishing
a gun— I was not there but I can see
the glint of their faces, the sharp
points of tears swallowed in the foam.
I don’t know what color the water was,
what it took, what it never gave back.
And so like a stunned general he hurried
down from his horse; in the middle of the day,
he brought a garment of unfamiliar remorse.
Please when we find her, he said:
Tell her. Tell her. You tell her.